Stranded
by meowloudly15
Summary: "It looked like she was on her own. No way to contact anyone she knew; they were a universe away. No way to just hop on a bus and ride back home. Gwen was stranded." Into the Spiderverse as told from Gwen's perspective. An expansion. Rated T for violence, blood, death, and general angst. Cover belongs to me.
1. Day 1 - PIGEON SWARM

**A/N: Hey, guys! It's meowloudly15 at the helm! And today, I've got for you the start of a story that I've been working on for the past month and a half! It feels so great to finally get it out there! I mean, I'm not done writing it, but still, you know that feeling, right?**

**I saw _Into the Spider-Verse_ the day after Christmas. I was already in love with Butch!Gwen, and the movie did nothing but help. But one thing about her origin story made me think. If she showed up to Brooklyn a week before the collider accident happened, what did she do during that week? And how did she really find her way to Miles?**

**Those were the questions that I sought to answer by writing this fic.**

**I'm currently set to post chapters twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. Here's hoping that I can actually stick to a schedule for once in my life.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own _Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse_ or any related characters. I am using them without permission. Please don't sue me.**

**I hope you like it!**

* * *

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen slowly elevated herself to a sitting position on the solid concrete, rubbing her aching head. She breathed a sigh of relief upon noting that she was still wearing her Spider-Woman mask and costume, because people were gawking at her crash landing. At least, that was what she assumed her spider-sense was warning her about.

Gwen scanned the area and noticed a disheveled man propping himself up from his seat on the stoop of an apartment building and looking her way. She also noticed a stained brown paper bag lying on the ground next to him. With any luck, the man would dismiss her as just being a drunken hallucination or some fashion of specter. She didn't see any other people nearby, so she presumed it safe to remain visible.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

Right. Where on earth was she?

Was she on Earth?

Gwen stood up and studied the somehow familiar yet unfamiliar landscape. There was something about it that made it appear almost unrealistic. The city resembled Connecticut City, but was it?

It was a different dimension, wasn't it. Gwen remembered what her spider-sense had repeated over and over as it went haywire right before she was sucked into the, uh... the weird bubbly thing. It kept saying "INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSPORTATION IMMINENT". If that wasn't a tip-off, she didn't know what was.

She ought to ask someone about where she was. But Gwen couldn't go talk to people at random while she was in her costume. They'd freak out.

RISK OF NUDITY

Right. She didn't have street clothes. They were back at her house, wherever that might be. She'd have to get some somehow.

Gwen rummaged through her pockets, taking inventory. Extra web fluid; very important... phone; hopefully she'd get service... driver's license; probably not valid here... house keys; she hoped she'd be home by curfew but kind of doubted it... a notepad and pen; tools of the trade... earbuds… aha! Money!

Only seven bucks worth of it!

The stores here might not even accept her cash. Gwen sighed.

She could steal something.

Gwen clenched her fists. There really wasn't any other way, was there?

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

"Thanks a lot," Gwen muttered under her breath, "but I already saw that coming."

And she needed to get a wallet, too, Gwen thought as she stuffed the crumpled bills back into her pocket. But that could wait.

She had to find a store. In the process, she could explore this place.

There was also a lot of other weird feedback from her spider-sense, Gwen recalled as she shot a webline towards the nearest street sign (it read "Wideway", which wasn't the name of any street that she knew of) and swung into the city. Something about "HAIR-RELATED CRISIS", and "PIGEON SWARM", and "LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT", and "BLOODY PREDICAMENT". She shrugged them off as her spider-sense just going haywire from the extreme duress that she was un-

PIGEON SWARM

Gwen looked up and found herself just feet away from a flock of pigeons which was headed straight towards her. She yelped in a rather undignified fashion and dodged between the startled birds, somehow managing to navigate through with only a few scratches.

Okay, maybe the spider-sense was right that one time. But it was just a coincidence. Wasn't it?

Gwen sighed and continued to web-swing, searching for a store as she traveled.

What the... Bold Navy?

Gwen swung to the building, clinging to its face and crawling down to peer in the shop windows. There were racks of clothes and mannequins inside. A few shoppers and clerks milled through the brightly-lit aisles.

Huh. This place must have been this universe's version of Gold Navy.

So what was the plan, what was the plan?

SHOPPERS INCOMING

Gwen flinched and crawled backwards to avoid being noticed by two young women who were emerging from the store. She had half a mind to steal the clothes from their bags, but she didn't know if they would be the right size or not. Instead, she vaulted through the automatic doors and clung to the wall above it inside the store, staying out of range of the cameras.

The shoppers were another thing that her spider-sense had warned her about while going through the bubbles.

Two coincidences?

Maybe they weren't coincidences, Gwen wondered.

There was no time to think about that. She needed to steal herself some clothes.

But Gwen still hesitated, more out of nerves than anything. Should she be here?

INCONCLUSIVE

She sighed. She was here already; she might as well get it over with.

Gwen clambered across the white-painted rafters on the ceiling, looking for something that she would wear while also avoiding the people passing beneath her.

Nobody ever looked up. But it was best to stay safe.

That grey shirt looked decent. Gwen used a webline to snag it from a pile, slightly disturbing the clothes to either side. She held it up to herself. A bit small, but it would fit well enough.

A little further down, Gwen spotted pairs of khaki pants. She snatched one up, then returned it to the shelf upon realising that it was the wrong size. This time checking the label, she grabbed the correct one.

Gwen grabbed a jean jacket and backpack to complete her ensemble and had started to stuff the clothes in the pack when she remembered that she had to take off the dye tags. She crawled back to the front of the store and took a tag remover, using it to pull off the tags and promptly returning it to its proper location.

Gwen put the clothes away and took out her notepad, scribbling a quick message to the Bold Navy employees and firing it down to the checkout counter with a webshot. It read:

"I took some clothes from your store and I'm sorry but I needed them urgently. I'll pay you back asap. SW"

Gwen was about to leave when she realised that she needed different shoes. She couldn't run around town in teal ballet slippers. She hurriedly snatched a pair of blue sneakers before swinging out of the store.

She landed on a nearby rooftop, searching for cover in which to don her new outfit, and spotted a stairwell entrance. That would be perfect.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen threw herself to the ground, anxiously glancing around for whomever might be looking at her. She saw nobody but still commando-crawled to take shelter behind the stairwell. She threw on the outfit on top of her costume, replacing her ballet slippers with the sneakers, and tossed her mask, gloves, and slippers into the bag. Standing up, Gwen examined herself as she tore the price tags off of her clothes, casting them onto the ground. The pants fit surprisingly well, as did the jacket, which also conveniently concealed her hood and web-shooters, but the shirt was a bit tight and the sneakers were far too loose.

She was ready to go down and brave the city.

GUARD ON WATCH

Gwen opened the stairwell door and almost immediately found herself staring down a security guard. She froze in place.

RUN NOW

Gwen obediently turned tail and fled. The guard exclaimed and ran after her, waving his baton and flashlight.

Gwen's feet slipped inside her oversize sneakers as she rounded a corner, heading towards another rooftop. The new shoes were only slowing her down; at least she was still running comparatively quickly, thanks to her super speed. She propelled herself to the next roof, her feet sliding as she jumped and reducing her traction on the ledge. She landed awkwardly on the raised lip of the other roof and rolled onto the gravel rooftop just below before the guard could see where she had gone.

Gwen watched a flashlight beam pass over her head, waver from side to side, then vanish. She heard the distant crunch of boots on gravel receding and a man muttering something.

She'd be caught if she stayed up here much longer, Gwen knew. But she couldn't exactly go wall-crawling down buildings in civilian garb.

What if she asked the security guard where she was?

Then again, she was wearing stolen property. And she was trespassing. Gwen did not want to risk getting arrested.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

What in the ever-living heck did that mean?

Gwen was seized with a violent tremor, like an electric shock but extending through every inch of her body. She convulsed as startlingly bright colours flashed before her vision. She shrieked involuntarily through clenched teeth.

The strange seizure ended as abruptly as it had begun. Gwen was left with only a pounding headache for her troubles.

Through her rapidly receding pain, she heard louder, faster crunches of gravel and a man distantly saying, "... someone on the roof, some girl just yelled. Probably the same one. I'm checking it out."

Gwen stood up on unsteady legs and started to run. Her newly-stolen backpack thumped uncomfortably against her torso. She leaped to the next roof, tripped, and fell on her face not far from its edge.

She picked herself up but froze in the blinding glare of a flashlight. Holding the flashlight was the same security guard that she had run into previously. Gwen must have jumped onto the first building in her confusion.

She figured she already knew the answer but wanted to ask just to be safe: should she be here?

NOT A CHANCE


	2. Day 1 - HOSTILE SITUATION

This sucked.

Gwen asked herself again in the police station if she should be here.

NOPE

She attempted to facepalm but was restrained by the handcuffs attaching her to the metal chair. She looked back up at the police officer sitting in the opposite corner of the office. He was studying the contents of her pockets, which were laid out on a plastic tray on the desk.

The cop held her driver's license up to the light and inspected it carefully. "Forgery," he said, making a note on his tablet. "That's another addition to the charges against you."

Gwen stared at her feet. The license wasn't counterfeited, and neither was the money. It was just made by a government from another dimension. But the man would never believe her if she told him.

"And these pills," the officer continued, holding a capsule of web fluid between his thumb and index finger, "are unlike any drugs I've seen."

"They're not drugs," interrupted Gwen.

The officer – his name was Officer Robertson, according to his badge – turned to look at her. "I'm sorry?"

Gwen backpedaled, knowing that she couldn't reveal the web fluid's real purpose. "They're, well, they're drugs, yeah, but they're prescription. For my headaches and stuff. You know, the bad things. The ones you need medicine for?"

Officer Robertson raised his eyebrows. "Migraines?"

Cover stories weren't exactly Gwen's forte.

"Yeah, yeah, I think so. Or wait. You mean migrations, right?"

"They're called migraines, miss, uh, Gwendolyn Stacy. That is your name, right?"

"What? Yeah. Yessir. That's right. But you can call me Gwen. Sir."

"And how old are you?"

"S-sixteen last June, sir."

Officer Robertson nodded and jotted down another note. "Your fingerprints aren't anywhere in our database, so there's no existing charges against you, you'll be happy to know." He picked up Gwen's notebook and started to flip through it.

Gwen knew that there was nothing incriminating in her notebook, since it was still fairly new. She'd used up what, two of them now? Regardless, there wasn't much in there. Gwen tried to remember what she'd written down so far. A shopping list, some lyric ideas for her band (although she knew Em Jay probably wouldn't care), random doodles; stuff like that. Nothing revealing her secret identity, thank goodness.

It was weird being on the other side of the cuffs. Gwen was no stranger to the police force – her father had been a captain for as long as she could remember – but even that one time, after P-... after her friend was killed, she hadn't been interred. But, of course, Gwen knew what was coming next. She'd be thrown in a cell, she'd be given an attorney, she'd go to trial, she'd end up in prison, she'd be stuck on this parallel universe for the rest of her pitiful existence. It was enough to make her want to scream.

Another factor which induced the same irritating effect was the constant feedback from her spider-sense, the incessant warnings of "HOSTILE SITUATION". Gwen knew that she was in hot water, and she didn't need to be notified about it a thousand or so times.

But she didn't scream. She'd had a lot of practice bottling up her emotions. And if she did, it would likely get her in even more trouble with the cops.

Officer Robertson set down the notepad and unzipped Gwen's stolen backpack, which, she now noticed, still bore the Bold Navy price tag. He removed Gwen's mask, gloves, and ballet slippers, and set them on the tray.

A young red-haired man burst into the room. "Hey! Hey! Handwriting sample! There's a thing!"

Officer Robertson turned to look at the man, who couldn't be much older than Gwen. "Jake. What do you need?"

Jake held up a slip of paper with a ragged top edge which was partly covered with writing. "This was recovered from Bold Navy just a little bit ago, and it has some sort of... chemical stuff on it. Dunno what it is, but it's sticky." He removed his thumb from the paper, holding it upside-down on his index finger, and it didn't move.

Gwen's eyes widened.

"Your point is...?" asked Officer Robertson.

He examined the paper more closely, then looked back down at the notebook, flipping through it, finding a matching torn edge. His eyes lit up.

Officer Robertson snatched the paper from Jake's hand and said, "Go get a graphologist." Jake obediently ran out of the room.

The cop studied a page in the notebook carefully, comparing it to the page from Bold Navy. He looked up at Gwen. "This notebook belongs to you, right?"

"Yessir."

"And you're the only person who has written in it?"

Gwen hung her head. She knew where this conversation was going, so there was no more point in keeping anything from him.

"Yeah. I wrote that note, and I stole the clothes."

Officer Robertson raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Yessir. I'm wearing them right now, sir. Please, don't take them from me. The, uh, the stuff I'm wearing is the only clothes I've got right now."

She wasn't lying. Her suit was under her clothes.

Officer Robertson folded his arms across his chest. "That's fine. You can wear them for the time being. We'll get you a jumpsuit tomorrow. But for now, you're staying overnight in the holding cell."

Gwen nodded dejectedly.

The uniformed man seemed to notice her downtrodden mood. "Do you have any family to call and talk to?"

"No, sir, uh, not around here."

Again, she wasn't technically lying.

"All right then, kid." Officer Robertson unlatched one of Gwen's handcuffs and led her out of the room and through the halls to a holding cell. It was bare except for a cot, toilet, and sink. He released her into the cell, then shut the heavy metal door behind her.  
"Try to get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Gwen stood in the middle of the cell, shaking, waiting for the man's footsteps to fade away. She punched the door, leaving a fist-shaped dent in it and making her hand throb. She fell backwards onto the bed and tried to sleep.

Everything about this sucked.


	3. Day 1 - ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

It was 1:33 am, according to the new guard, and Gwen hadn't slept a wink. She lay back on the cot, pondering what her spider-sense had said before she was sucked into the stupid vortex. She had come to the conclusion that the messages were precognitive, like the messages from her spider-sense were per usual, but came to pass after an unusually long time.

The messages made no sense, though Gwen assumed that she would understand them when the time came, as with a typical prophecy. She felt like she had mistakenly received a backlog of messages that weren't supposed to be delivered so soon.

So she was prophetic? It would explain a lot.

Gwen's spider-sense was a voice inside her head, an inhuman sort of guide giving her a sense of trouble, of where and when danger existed and some notion of what form it took. At the same time, it was, for lack of a better term, weird. Its descriptions were unclear, and its sense of timing was erratic, if it spoke up at all. The sense confused her even after two years of having it around, and these new revelations didn't help in the slightest.

All Gwen could conclude about her spider-sense was that it wasn't human but also wasn't a foe.

But the clues, as she chose to call them, could help.

That is, if she could figure out what they meant.

"BLOODY PREDICAMENT"? What the bloody heck did that mean? Was Gwen going to bleed out or something? Did she need a transfusion?

There was another particularly confusing one, too: "MILES OF INTEREST". Well, they were all confusing, but this one in particular had so many possible interpretations. Was there a super long line at the bank? Was there some fascinating road race coming up?

And really? "GAYNESS IMPEDIMENT"? What even?

Gwen was confused, but she wasn't going to let that one bother her. It didn't seem particularly important. "MILES OF INTEREST": now that one sounded important. So did "PRIVATE SHED". It sounded like it might refer to a private eye, but she doubted any of those still operated in the city.

Or wait! A private school!

Maybe?

Gwen stood up and started to pace back and forth; she finally resigned herself to not getting any sleep. Where would there be a private school?

From what she had seen while web-swinging, this alternate city – it was apparently called New York City – had a very similar layout to the Manhattan that she knew. It was the names of everything that were the most different (along with the state borders).

Wait. What was that one message? "VISION OF BROOKLYN"? What was Brooklyn? Was it the name of a school? Another city? Some shed?

Gwen needed a map.

Would Googol Maps work on her phone?

She needed to get out of here.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

While Gwen hated the thought of breaking the law – again – and of breaking out of jail, she needed to figure out how to get home. And she couldn't do that if she was stuck in this stupid cell.

But how to get out?

Gwen walked to the steel door, looking out through the metal grating that served as a viewport. The guard was standing maybe ten feet from the door, stifling a yawn.

She had half a mind to tear the door from its hinges and hurl it into the man. But that would attract too much attention, and she didn't want to injure anybody that much.

So what could she do?

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Oh boy.

Gwen gritted her teeth and somehow avoided crying out again. Another convulsion wracked her body, sending her reeling forward. But she didn't crash into the door. When she came to her senses, Gwen found that she was on the other side of it, standing in the hall.

She wasn't complaining.

GUARD ON WATCH

Gwen leaped up and clung to the ceiling as the guard looked her way. Luckily, he didn't notice her. She crawled along the hall and found herself in a junction of corridors.

Where was her stuff? She needed to get that before leaving.

Now was a good time for her spider-sense to speak up.

Nothing happened.

Gwen sighed. She'd have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Where did cops put their evidence again? Was it still in the office?

Gwen tried to recall which way Officer Robertson had led her to her cell. They took a right, then a left. She retraced her steps, avoiding passing within the field of view of the security cameras.

No cameras were ever set to look up. That was always a plus.

Gwen reached the room and tried the door. It was locked.

But what about the window?

It was probably alarmed. No way.

She could try to pick the lock, but she didn't know how.

She could break or disable the lock somehow. But she didn't want to visibly tamper with anything.

Was there a keyring somewhere? On the guard?

Gwen looked behind her, analysing the guard's outfit. She didn't see any keys visible on his uniform.

Oh, wait! She could just wait for another, uh, what was it called... atomic disjunction and phase through the door!

It might take a while, but if Gwen had anything going for her, it was time.

She positioned herself in front of the door and waited.

For a while.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

The spider-sense woke Gwen up. She only just had the presence of mind to scramble over and cling to the door before the spasm hit. She passed through the door and landed awkwardly on the floor, lucky that she hadn't broken her neck.

Gwen stared around her, still reeling from pain, breathing heavily as if her alarm clock had gone off and she had fallen out of bed. This was the office that she had been in, all right. She checked the clock on the wall and noted that it was now 2:50 am. She had definitely missed curfew by now.

Where was her stuff?

Gwen ran to the file cabinet set against the wall. It might be in there.

She tried to open the bottom drawer. It was locked.

She opened the next drawer up, hoping that her stuff wasn't locked up. Luckily, it was all in the unlocked drawer. Gwen pulled on her mask and gloves, shoved her phone into her pocket, stuffed the rest of her possessions into her backpack, and threw it on. She shut the drawer, trying her best to not make much noise.

Gwen rushed to the window, hoping it wasn't alarmed. She opened the window, which serendipitously didn't have a screen, and leapt out.

Now where would she go?


	4. Day 1 - VISION OF BROOKLYN

Gwen pulled off her mask and ran away from the police station, looking back over her shoulder to assure herself that nobody had seen her leave. Nobody had, but she still needed to put as much distance between them and her as possible before they noticed that she was gone.

She rounded a corner, slipping and nearly falling because of her blasted oversized sneakers. She really needed to make them fit better, since they might cost her a battle or something.

But first, Gwen needed to get to a safe space.

That low rooftop didn't look like it had any means of access.

Gwen leaped onto the side and wall-crawled to the top of the building. Upon reaching the roof, she took a deep breath and tried to relax. Nobody was gonna find her here. No need to freak out. Her spider-sense would give her plenty of warning.

Somehow, Gwen managed to calm down to the point where exhaustion overcame her and where she was about to fall asleep. Then she realised that it was a terrible idea to fall asleep on the top of a building. Where would she go in the morning? She needed to find some source of food, a shelter, a place to live for the time being while she figured out what to do next. And she had better start soon.

Gwen knew that she needed to sleep, that her exhaustion would soon get the best of her. But she needed food and shelter just as much.

She forced herself to stand up, stifling a yawn.

She was struck with an idea all of a sudden. Gwen threw her backpack to the ground and took out the slippers. She removed her sneakers and put them back on over her ballet slippers. She stood up again and tried running. Surprisingly enough, her plan worked. Her shoes felt less awkward, and they didn't slip at all with the slippers filling up the extra space.

Gwen nodded, satisfied. She felt more comfortable in her sneakers, at least, which was nice.

Now she needed to figure out where she was. Gwen pulled out her phone and opened up Googol Maps. Surprisingly enough, she still had service, even in this alternate dimension (she wondered if she should give a positive Welp review if… no, when she got home), but the app threw an error when attempting to find her location. She sighed and closed the app.

Gwen then opened up her texting app. She was about to text her dad when she wondered if there was another person in this dimension who had the exact same phone number.

It looked like she was on her own. No way to contact anyone she knew; they were a universe away. No way to just hop on a bus and ride back home. Gwen was stranded.

And she was alone. She was alone, with only her spider-sense to guide her, and lost, and... She didn't know what was up with her so-called atomic disjunctions, but they couldn't mean anything good.

Gwen clenched her fists. There had to be some way to get home. There just had to be. She had gotten here, so there had to be a way back.

She had no choice but to find it.

Maybe her spider-sense could guide her.

Maybe that was the purpose of the backlog of messages. Maybe they would help her get home.

She took out her notepad and wrote down as many of the messages as she could remember.

SHOPPERS INCOMING  
MILES OF INTEREST  
GAYNESS IMPEDIMENT  
RUSSIAN SPY  
PRIVATE SHED  
VISION OF BROOKLYN  
BLOODY PREDICAMENT  
OCTAGONS  
REPTILIAN BUG  
LINCH KING  
PIGEON SWARM  
HAIR-RELATED CRISIS  
LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

She hoped that she would have enough web fluid to last until she returned home.

Gwen laughed to herself. She was lost, alone in a parallel universe, and she was worrying about her supply of web fluid. That would be the last of her concerns if she ended up stuck here forever.

Speaking of which, she needed to get some sleep. Better now than never, regardless of whether or not she had real shelter. Rest was important.

Gwen set her jacket down on the rooftop as a sort of makeshift blanket. She lay down on top of her jacket, resting her head on her backpack. It probably wouldn't be the best night's sleep she would ever have.

Gwen fell asleep while wondering about Brooklyn.


	5. Day 2 - BLOODY PREDICAMENT

**I just wanted to give a shoutout to gammathetaalpha, who has been so kind as to betaread my story starting with this chapter! Mad kudos!**

**Anyway, enjoy! I hope you've liked it so far!**

* * *

Gwen sat up, blinking away exhaustion. She shaded her eyes from the bright glow of daylight emanating from the horizon. Her back was killing her, her right hand had gone numb from lying on that arm, and her mouth was dry. She mumbled, "Don' wanna geddup," and fell back onto her makeshift pillow.

She had a US history test today. She hated that class. Stupid AP courses and their stupid essay questions. Why had she taken it again? And why had she not studied for the test? It wasn't like she actually understood why it was called the French and Indian War, and she definitely couldn't write a whole essay about it in 45 minutes.

She was out crimefighting, that was why. She had stopped a cutpurse, then she had gotten into a fight with some new supervillain, then…

Oh.

Gwen remembered where she was.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She had no school today.

She smiled to herself a bit upon realising that. Her smile faded when she recalled that she had bigger issues than the indomitable APUSH tests.

For instance, Gwen was starving. She needed breakfast. She could raid a gas station or something.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Her conscience was bothering her enough as it was from having been imprisoned. And anyway, the cops would almost certainly be on the lookout for her by now. Where could she go?

Well, Gwen wouldn't accomplish anything if she stayed on this rooftop.

What time was it?

Gwen checked her phone. It was a few minutes before 7. In other words, it was way too early to be awake.

But what was she going to do, lie back down on the uncomfortable rooftop and try to sleep a little longer? It was too late for that now.

Gwen stood up on unsteady legs, rubbing her eyes. She put on her jacket and backpack and, after checking to make sure there were no passersby, leapt to the sidewalk. She put in her earbuds and started playing music through her phone. She walked along the side of the street, looking for any place where she could get food or water. Unfortunately, there was no such place in sight.

Gwen turned down another street and immediately noticed that she had made a mistake. There were numerous graffiti tags on the grimy brick buildings. She started walking more quickly.

SUSPICIOUS PERSONS

A tall, swarthy man with a goatee and glasses looked her way and stood up straight from where he had been leaning against a street lamp on the other side of the road. He looked awfully sketchy. Gwen swore internally.

"What're you doing out so early, sweetie?" he asked, a cocky grin spreading across his face.

Gwen tried her hardest to control her gag reflex. "That's none of your business," she snapped before realising how stupid it was to say anything. Where was her spider-sense – or better yet, her common sense – when she needed it?

The man raised an eyebrow. "And why's that? You lost?" He walked across the street and stood on the sidewalk, arms folded across his chest.

Gwen crossed to the other side of the road and continued on her way.

The man walked parallel to her on his side of the street and called over, "Why don't you tell me if you are? I can escort you."

Gwen couldn't refrain from making another snarky comment. "Well, if I'm at Brooklyn, then I'm not lost, so bug off, scumbag," she retorted.

Well, there wasn't much more harm she could do at this point.

The man jogged to her side of the street. "It ain't. This is Manhattan. Just cross the bridge to the south, and you'll be there."

Gwen narrowed her eyes and quickened her pace. He was probably lying to her. He seemed like the kind of guy who would find it funny to give people wrong directions. He was probably trying to lead her astray.

"Okay, I've helped you," said the man, matching her pace. His insincere grin was starting to weird her out. "What're you gonna give me in return?"

Wait a second. "SUSPICIOUS PERSONS"? As in, multiple persons?

She had to get out of here.

"How about this?" replied Gwen. She whirled to the side and elbowed him in the throat. The man gasped for breath. He yanked out a switchblade. She turned down a side alley, breaking into a sprint.

BLOODY PREDICAMENT

Gwen dodged a bullet sent at her head and kept running. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two hulking figures jump out of an alleyway and sprint after her. One waved around a sawn off shotgun; the other brandished a blood-stained baseball bat.

Gwen smiled internally. They'd picked on the wrong little girl.

She spun around, dodging another bullet that would have hit her arm, and charged at the nearest one.

"Lookit this, the little girl thinks she's gonna beat us up!" the guy with the bat taunted. He pulled it back and swung.

Gwen ducked under the bat, grabbing it and using the thug's momentum to knock him off balance. She ripped the bat out of his stunned grasp and brought it down hard on his crotch. He screamed. Gwen winced.

Several hundred pounds of force hurt badly, no matter where the blow landed. She didn't envy the guy, although she didn't feel remorse for him.

Gwen swung the bat into the stomach of the thug with the gun. He exhaled sharply and doubled over. Gwen dropped the bat, vaulted over him, and kicked the last guy in the face, snapping his glasses cleanly in half. He fell to the pavement with a thud.

RECOVERING FOE

The gang member whom she had hit in the gut staggered back to his feet. "Who…" he gasped. "What–"

Gwen punched him in the face. He dropped like a sack of bricks, landing prone on top of the first thug.

She inspected her stinging knuckles as she started walking down the sidewalk away from the three vagabonds. They had split, and a trace of blood was running down her fingers. She couldn't tell if it was hers or not. Looking at it sparked a memory. She looked back at the gangsters and noticed that they were wearing matching red armbands.

The Bloods. That's who those hooligans were.

That was one mystery solved.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen fell to her hands and knees as another spasm coursed through her. This time, she managed to keep her eyes open just enough to learn that the flashing colours passing through her vision weren't a trick of the mind. Her body flashed neon green, then yellow, then pink, passing through nearly all of the visible colours rapidly, one after another. She also… was she glitching out?

When Gwen's disjunction ended, she had more questions than she had had beforehand.

Those disjunctions were a mystery for another day.

It was time to go to Brooklyn.


	6. Day 2 - LIKE YOU

**I'm thinking I might take a week-long hiatus after posting this chapter to get further ahead on my queue. We'll see.**

* * *

Gwen figured that she would follow the guy with the glasses' directions because she had no other leads. If he was wrong, well, web-swinging was an awfully rapid method of travel, far faster than was walking. She could get wherever she needed to go quickly.

At least, for as long as her web fluid lasted.

Gwen mentally facepalmed. Why was she still worrying about that? She shouldn't be worrying about that. That wasn't a primary concern.

Gwen looked around her one last time to make certain that nobody was watching, then pulled on her mask and gloves and attached a webline to the side of the nearest building. She broke into a sprint. Her legs moved faster and faster, effortlessly gliding along the ground, then skimming the ground, then leaving it altogether, as the webline pulled her up. She kicked up her legs like a kid on a swingset, let go of the line, and allowed herself to fly through the air for a moment before thwipping out another line that pulled her even higher in the air.

Gwen quickly settled into a rhythm, as she always did. Thwip. Swing. Release. Fly. Repeat. But rhythms were boring. She knew that from her experience as a drummer. You had to change the patterns, play with conventions, stick with the framework to keep from crashing and burning, but no more than necessary. So she mixed things up while web-swinging, too.

Gwen remembered her first time out web-swinging on her own, not long after Pet- after her old friend had made her a pair of web-shooters. It was hard at the start. But she had developed a rhythm, and that made everything easier. Again, it was just like drumming. You didn't give newbies complex patterns to learn and practice. You gave them a simple beat. They could learn from there. Have fun with it. Improvise, do new things. But at its core, the rhythm was always simple. Thwip. Swing. Release. Fly.

But Gwen was no newbie. She was a seasoned web-swinger with over two years of practice, and casting out a line felt almost as natural as breathing did.

Cool metal brushed against her as she narrowly passed through a narrow gap between buildings. She backflipped at the top of her swing before descending in a graceful arc, the sounds of distant traffic growing ever closer. Just before she hit the ground, she caught herself on another line. She ran along the side of the office complex to her right, then leaped off and swung as high up as she could, the chill wind whipping around her clothes.

The world was the greatest obstacle course ever designed, and she was the playtester.

All of a sudden, she ran out of buildings. Gwen shot a webline to the side, and it flew into oblivion. She landed en pointe on a street sign and surveyed the landscape ahead.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She saw water, a big river of some sort. There was land, and plenty of buildings on the far side. A large bridge gracefully arched over the water not too far from where she stood.

Gwen happened to look down at the street sign as she jumped back to street level. It read, "Brooklyn Bridge - 1/2 mi".

Street signs. She should have used street signs to find her way around. Gwen facepalmed. She felt like an idiot.

At least she knew where to go now.

Gwen took off at a jog in the direction of the bridge. It wasn't very cleverly named. She wondered if the island nearby was still named Long Island in this dimension.

Her spider-sense went off. It wasn't any discernible message, just an incessant itch at the base of her skull.

Gwen whirled around, instinctively taking up a fighting stance. What was the problem? Where was the danger?

The spider-sense started to ease up, but its message kept repeating insistently. It was more coherent now.

LIKE YOU

LIKE YOU

LIKE YOU

Gwen spotted a flash of red and blue above the buildings on her side of the river. What was that?

It showed up again, passing by quickly, then abruptly changed direction as though it had been yanked by a string.

LIKE YOU

Gwen leaped onto a stop sign, trying to get a closer look.

She saw the figure again. It landed on a distant brownstone, darted along the roof, then bounded off and disappeared. It reappeared moments later, soaring through the air in a well-practiced arc.

LIKE YOU

Gwen's eyes widened behind her mask. The pieces fell into place.

It was someone else with spider powers.

LIKE YOU

Gwen leaped down from her perch and started to run towards where she had seen the spider-person. She tore off the mask and stuffed it into her jacket pocket to avoid catching the attention of passersby.

All of a sudden, somebody passed right over her head. Gwen instinctively ducked. The person caught himself on the wall of a building, sticking to it for a second, then leaped down and landed neatly on the street.

He had the same bearing, the same acrobatic confidence, that she possessed.

"Sorry about that," the costumed man said.

Gwen gasped.

He had Peter's voice.

"I really should be looking where I'm going more. Sorry. Was in a bit of a rush. I'm gonna be late for class. I mean, fighting crime." The person with Peter's voice scratched his head nervously, just like Gwen's Peter would. "You know. Gotta get out in the field super early, heh. You know how it is. Crime pulls all-nighters. Spiderman's gotta do that, too. I mean, you shouldn't do that, though. It's not healthy, you know. Leave that to the professionals. Like me."

Gwen didn't respond. She was too busy staring at this… impostor? Who was he?

He wasn't the Peter that she knew, that was for sure. She had watched him die. And now he was alive?

Peter… this guy sounded just like him. He had the same mannerisms, the same verbal tics. He was even terrible at lying, just like Peter used to be.

_He_ was... Spiderman in this dimension?

Peter gave Gwen a quizzical look. "Stop staring, kid. Seriously. I'm too old for you. I mean, maybe. I probably am. I don't know how old I am. I mean, yes I do. But you don't. I mean, not that that matters."

Gwen wondered how Peter could possibly have kept his identity a secret.

"Wait, how old are you? I'm guessing twelve?"

Gwen would have laughed, but she was too much in shock to react to anything.

"I'm gonna take your silence as a yes. Well, I gotta head off now. Stay frosty." Peter gave a salute, then fired a webline into the air and prepared to take off.

He was leaving. That snapped her out of her fugue state. "Wait! Peter!"

Peter's head whipped around. Gwen covered her mouth, immediately realising that she had used the wrong name.

"What? I mean, Peter? Who's Peter? What are you talking about? Are you talking to me? Because I'm not Peter. No. I'm Spiderman, you know. Not Peter. Sorry if I'm being a bit spastic. I had espresso this morning, and it always makes me jittery. But anyways, did you want something?"

Gwen just looked at Peter for a moment, clenching and unclenching her teeth.

What could she say to this Peter? She knew this stranger but didn't really know him. She had lost Peter, but here, he was still alive. There was nothing to say.

Gwen blinked more rapidly, and cast her gaze downwards.

It wouldn't be quite the same.

But it was still him. She ought to say something.

"I-I'm sorry," Gwen stammered out, before she could second-guess herself.

"Wait, what?" asked a now bewildered Peter – no, Spiderman. He wasn't Peter. At least, not the same one.

Gwen turned tail and ran away. She couldn't bear to face the boy whom she thought she knew for any longer.

It was all too confusing for her. She hadn't bottled up her emotions nearly well enough.


	7. Day 2 - LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

**I make my triumphant sort-of-return! Chapter updates may or may not be on schedule from here on out. If they can't be, then I'll post them as soon as they're ready. Thought you guys deserved to know ^w^**

**Also, I changed the category that the fic is listed under. Thanks to LucyLuna for the heads-up!**

* * *

Gwen stopped running when she saw, not too far in the distance, a large suspension bridge supported by two massive stone columns. She surveyed the area for street signs and saw one that read, "Brooklyn Bridge /|\".

There wasn't much further to go.

What would she do when she got to this town called Brooklyn?

Again, she needed to find shelter. And food, she recalled, as her stomach growled.

She would cross that metaphorical bridge when she came to it. Right now, Gwen needed to cross a literal bridge.

Was there a sidewalk running alongside it, or a maintenance walkway?

There was only one way to find out.

Gwen headed to the bridge. Sure enough, the sidewalk continued up a flight of stairs and crossed the bridge, running parallel to the road.

As she walked, Gwen tried not to think about Peter.

She couldn't help it.

Memories flooded back into her head, memories that she had tried to repress for two years.

* * *

Peter J. Parker had been Gwen's best friend since junior high, despite being a grade above her. They first met by chance: Gwen was held after school for detention (she had been caught letting Kevin Martin cheat off of her), and Peter had stayed after to attend coding club. Gwen had left the detention classroom and was on her way to the office so she could call her father for a ride, when she passed by Kevin, who was hassling Peter.

Kevin yelled at him, "What did you call me, pipsqueak? What did you call me?"

Gwen walked over to them. "Hey, Kevin! What're you bothering him for?"

"Stay out of this, blondie." Kevin grabbed Peter's shirt collar and started twisting it. Peter yelped in surprise.

Gwen stepped closer, hands on her hips. "What did he do to you?"

"He called me a… a… simple-"

"A simplistic prokaryote," squeaked out Peter. "But, you know, they both mean-"

"Let him go," demanded Gwen.

Kevin looked at her. "What did you say?"

"Are you deaf and dumb? I said let him go!"

Kevin folded his arms and pouted. "All right, fine, whatever."

Peter scampered away, and Gwen trotted after him.

They introduced themselves and started to chat. Apparently, they lived pretty close to each other. Peter had been on Gwen's bus until the bus schedules had been swapped around. They also both liked science class best (although Gwen initially claimed to prefer lunch). By the time Peter's aunt had arrived to pick him up, the two had become fast friends.

Although their paths diverged upon entering high school – Peter was fascinated by chemistry and studied it intensely, while Gwen chose to neglect her schoolwork in favour of music – the two remained close, although they never ventured beyond platonic friendship. Peter had a massive crush on Em Jay Watson, whom Gwen had admired at the time and who was considered "simultaneously the most beautiful and most rebellious girl in school". Gwen dated a couple of guys to seem cooler but was never truly interested in a relationship.

After the ill-fated field trip to Ozcorp in which Gwen was bitten by an irradiated spider, she had confided in Peter about her newfound abilities. He, of course, was extremely excited, at least at first.

"Holy cow! Holy cow! Do it again!" he yelled, eagerly hopping up and down after watching Gwen do a standing backflip in his basement. Gwen grinned, repeating the stunt. She was just as enthusiastic as he was, if not more so.

Peter jittered around for a second, then darted to his desk, grabbed a notebook and pencil, and started scribbling down notes. "Is that all you can do? Just the agility thing?"

Gwen replied, "I don't think so. That's not even the highest that I can jump."

She bent her legs and sprang up, easily placing her palm flat against the ceiling, which was around eight feet off of the ground. However, instead of coming down, she remained stuck to the ceiling.

"What the…"

Gwen panicked. She started jerking herself around, trying to unstick herself. She swung her legs up against the ceiling, bracing herself against it and pulling downward. All her efforts only made the drywall crack a bit.

"Peter! Pull me down!"

Peter obligingly rushed over and wrapped his arms around her torso. With their combined effort, they broke the plaster and freed Gwen's hand. She was left with a handful of sharp chips of plaster for her efforts.

They looked at each other.

"You can stick to things," Peter commented as Gwen asked, "Is your aunt gonna get mad that I broke your ceiling?"

They both started yelling at each other.

Eventually, after a lot more testing and just as much confusion, Gwen managed to get a handle on the extent of her powers, and Peter took it upon himself to design her a costume and a pair of web-shooters. He drew upon research from Ozcorp to develop a fluid that, upon exposure to air, would harden into a solid for a period of time and then disintegrate. Of course, he needed somebody with superpowers to be his guinea pig.

Gwen stood on the roof of her house at one in the morning for the first trial of the web-shooters. Peter watched from below, holding a stopwatch and notebook. "Whenever you're ready," he called up.

Gwen took a deep breath, stepped backward a few paces, and then ran along the ridge, firing her web-shooter at a nearby tree. She jumped into the air, grabbing hold of the webline, and plummeted to the ground as the line disintegrated in her grasp.

Peter ran over to her, saying, "Hey! Gwen! You okay?"

Gwen extracted herself from a rosebush, grumbling, "Oh, Dad's gonna be ticked off."

"I'm sorry it didn't work. Next time, I'll-"

"My dad's gonna be furious at me, and you know why? It was your bright idea to go jumping off the friggin' roof in the first place! And it was you who said we could just field-test this batch before we make any more! And now I've ruined my mom's old rosebush!"

Peter snapped. "'We'? Who's this 'we' you keep talking about? You're not the one who's taking huge chunks of time out of his schedule to help out a friend! You're not the one who spent hours slaving over Ozcorp's research papers! You're not the one who started getting Bs on all his assignments because of all the time he spent working on this, this stupid little pet project! You're the one parading around with your spider-abilities, starting impromptu arm-wrestling matches in the cafeteria to win pocket change, showing off in gym class, all because you think you're so special! Well, you're not! You're just a stupid wannabe punk kid who just happens to have superpowers and who'd be failing in algebra if it weren't for me!"

Gwen blinked, then huffed. "Go home, Parker. I'm going to bed."

It wasn't until later that night when Gwen realised how much of a jerk she had been to Peter. She had made him freak out, all because she was mad about a stupid rosebush. She should have known that Peter's confidence was as fragile as his body.

Gwen apologised to Peter, but their friendship was never quite the same after that night. Peter did perfect the web-fluid formula and gave her instructions for making more, but he stopped going out of his way to contact her. Indeed, even after stopping his web-fluid experiments, he seemed paler and more exhausted than usual.

Gwen noticed a little itch at the back of her skull, a little voice in her head whispering "GREEN MONSTER", every time she saw Peter. For the most part, she ignored it.

Gwen flinched unconsciously upon remembering these things. She wished she had listened. She wished she had reached out more.

But then again, at the time, she hadn't known about her precognition. She hadn't thought that Peter needed her friendship as much. She hadn't known what he had been planning.

* * *

Gwen finally shook herself free from her memories as she reached the end of the bridge and looked around. So this was Brooklyn.

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She really needed a map, but going to a police station to fetch one was out of the question. Was there a tourist centre nearby?

Maybe she could get a better view from above.

Gwen put her mask and gloves back on and shot a webline to the top of the tallest building nearby. She leaped up and started hauling herself up the line, hand over hand, until she reached the fire escape to which her webline had attached.

LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

Gwen furrowed her brow, tensing up, preparing herself for any sort of action, no matter what it might be.

She turned sharply upon hearing a high-pitched scream inside the brick apartment and saw a little girl standing at the half-open window in her pajamas. The girl threw a cough drop at her and beat a hasty retreat inside.

Gwen chuckled to herself. She then realised that the little girl's mother would probably be on the warpath, so she decided to climb up to the next level of the fire escape in order to survey Brooklyn.

VISION OF BROOKLYN

The message was accompanied with a persistent, very faint itch at the nape of her neck. Gwen had to slap her hand to the back of her head to make sure there wasn't a bug on her. She spotted a billboard that read, "Visions Academy. Give your child a brighter vision for their future. Enroll now."

That must have been it. That was where she needed to go.

Gwen studied the billboard more closely. Did it mention the school's location anywhere?

Sadly, it did not. Oh well. She had nothing better to do than to look for it.

Gwen had begun to absent-mindedly drum her fingers on the railing of the fire escape when she saw a middle-aged lady peek her head out from the window of the apartment below. She hurriedly pressed herself up against the brick wall.

The lady pulled her head back in and said, "There's nothing out there. No need to worry."

"But I'm telling you, I saw a ghost! It was wearing clothes and stuff, but its skin was totally white, and it had no face! And it had this big weird lump on its back!"

"That's nice, Cassie. But there's nobody out there."

"Exactly! It vanished! It's a ghost!"

Gwen chuckled. She supposed her costume did make her look a little bit like a ghost.

Anyway, she had to find that school, but first, she needed something to eat.


	8. Day 2 - RUSSIAN SPY

Gwen pulled off her mask and gloves and climbed down the fire escape. She jumped from the bottom level and landed lightly on the pavement below.

Where could she find food?

Gwen looked around. She appeared to be in a residential area.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

A young man on the other side of the road called to her, "Nice jump!"

Gwen picked a random direction and started walking quickly. It was a bad idea to do things that might attract attention.

She walked for a few blocks and saw what looked like a deli shop. A rotund Italian man stood outside of it, placing slices of turkey on a window ledge. A cat trotted over, meowing happily and loudly.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Not for the first time, Gwen cursed the presence of her moral compass. But she needed to eat something.

Gwen waited for the shop owner to go back inside, took a quick glance around to make sure that nobody was watching her (there were a couple of people on the street, but they were absorbed by their phones), and then sidled over to the windowsill. She swiped the turkey before the cat had finished sniffing at it and popped it into her mouth. The cat meowed unhappily, so she gave it a quick scratch on the head before continuing onward.

Gwen then realised how bad of an idea it probably was to eat something straight off of an unclean window ledge. She suppressed her gag reflex and swallowed.

It would tide her over for a little while, at least.

Gwen noticed the itch again, which was stronger now.

She continued to walk down the road. The itch grew more and more powerful, then started to weaken again.

Was it a homing signal? Would the sense direct her to Visions Academy?

There was only one way to find out.

Gwen turned around and kept walking until the itch regained its strength, then turned left. She crossed the street as a car honked at her. Typical Connec-... no, this was New York City. Typical New York courtesy.

She really wanted a map. But for now, at least, her spider-sense would do.

Gwen walked along the new street – it was called Park Drive – and felt the homing itch strengthen slightly.

She kept walking, following the itch as it played a nonverbal game of Hot and Cold with her. She took wrong turns, backtracked multiple times, had a brief atomic disjunction, and collided with a No Parking sign. It certainly wasn't the most efficient way to travel, and it wasn't the most fun, but at least she had something to do for the time being.

By the time Gwen had gotten about halfway through her music playlist, the homing itch was buzzing like a cell phone set to vibrate and was causing her a modicum of discomfort. She turned a corner and saw a large concrete building emblazoned with the words "VISIONS ACADEMY". On the street nearby stood a stocky police officer, sighing as he peeled a sticker off of a mailbox.

VISION OF BROOKLYN

Was school in session today?

Gwen took out her phone and looked at the date and time. It was now 11:30 on October 1st, a Monday, so…

Wait. October 1st?

That was almost a week before the dimensional travel incident happened!

Right?

Did the calendar work differently in this dimension?

How had her phone reset to this different date and time system?

Gwen had a lot more questions, but her stream of thoughts was interrupted by the policeman walking over to her, saying, "Hey, kid!"

She nearly fled. She thought the cop was about to arrest her. She assumed he recognised her. But she didn't move.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

Gwen sighed in relief, then immediately realised that she needed to come up with an excuse. "Yes! Doctor! The appointment thing! But it's over now, so I'm going back. Sir."

The man nodded, then turned and walked away. "Have a good day, kid."

"Sure thing, sir!" Gwen gave the officer a quick salute before jogging over to the school.

She looked behind her to see if the cop was still watching her. He was.

Well, it looked like she had to go inside.

Should she be here?

YA-YUP

Gwen swung open the door and walked into the school.

The first thing she was struck by was how polished and modern everything looked. She was also struck by the lack of students in the halls. Maybe it was class time.

Where should she go?

RUSSIAN SPY

What?

A large man dressed in a grey three-piece suit walked over to Gwen. "What are you doing outside of class?" he asked.

"I, uh, I…" Gwen stammered, at a loss for words.

Was this guy some type of spy?

The man squinted. "I know the face of every student in this school, but I don't recognise you."

Gwen tensed up. She assumed the man had recognised her from the police blotter.

"Sir, uh…"

"Then you must be Wanda Maximoff."

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief. She really had to put more trust in her spider-sense in social situations.

"The transfer student from Russia?"

Gwen gaped for a second, caught completely off-guard.

"Y-yes, dat es me," she finally said in the best Russian accent that she could muster on such short notice.

That explained a lot. The spider-sense had been referring to her.

The man extended a hand, smiling warmly. He modulated his speech carefully, hoping that it would aid "Wanda's" comprehension. "It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Doctor Bucci. I am the principal. Welcome to America."

"I-it, uh, eet eez mine plezoore also." Relieved to a point, Gwen shook Dr. Bucci's hand.

"I thought you would be arriving much later. We were not prepared for you quite so early."

"Ja, vell, I am here now."

"And indeed, whether late or early, your arrival is a pleasure. Allow me to take you on a tour of the school."

The next thirty minutes were a blur as Gwen was dragged from location to location by the overeager principal. He talked about the courses she would be taking, "reminded" her about housing and dining and extracurriculars, told her about the supplementary English courses, diverted onto tangents, presented her with a riddle or two that she couldn't solve, then resettled onto the subject at hand.

Gwen tried her best to remember all the information that kept getting thrown at her. Classes started promptly at 8:30; physics was first, followed by history, precalculus, et cetera; she was apparently listed as a freshman; she'd be in physics with the other transfer student who had arrived a couple of days ago; dorms were across the bridge (she was in room 118); study rooms were downstairs. There was a lot to remember. She didn't know how she could keep up this schedule, maintain her Russian facade, and somehow return home to her dimension.

But she would figure it out. Gwen just needed to put more faith in herself.

Also, she was starving. At least she wouldn't have to worry about meals any longer.

Dr. Bucci finally returned her to the main office and told her, "I'll send a copy of your schedule to your room, and I'll let your teachers know you're coming. Classes start tomorrow, so for now, feel free to relax, get lunch, explore a little. Also, we'll send up a uniform for you, plus all the assignments that you've missed. See you around!" He waved and walked off.

Gwen sighed in relief. She had plenty of time to figure out what she was doing.


	9. Day 2 - GREEN MONSTER

**I'm really sorry I didn't have this chapter ready for you guys sooner. Hopefully next chapter will be on time, but I can't make any promises anymore.**

**See you soon-ish.**

* * *

Gwen lay in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar building in an unfamiliar dimension, staring at the dark ceiling. At least she felt safe here, safer than she did in the jail cell or on the rooftop.

Though she hated to admit it, Gwen was looking forward to school tomorrow. Her life would be back to normal, at least in some aspects.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen sighed and shut her eyes as a painful spasm passed through her.

She was lucky to not have a roommate due to being a "transfer student". She was also lucky to have successfully stolen toiletries and a notebook from a nearby Walblue's.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Gwen rolled her eyes. Having a conscience and a sense of responsibility and duty sucked. It was times like this when she wished she wasn't a superheroine.

What would have happened if she wasn't one? What would her life be like?

It would have been a lot more boring, that was for sure. She would probably have done better in her classes (that was a big if, knowing how little she cared about schoolwork before taking up the mantle), and she might have been more popular, considering that she would have had more free time to socialise.

It sucked that she couldn't attend some of her band practices due to patrolling the city. While the rest of the band was okay with her absences, Em Jay was not.

Em Jay had been getting on Gwen's nerves as of late. She really wasn't that great of a person. Gwen supposed that knowledge came both from getting to know her better and from not constantly hanging out with a guy who would compliment her at every opportunity.

She sighed resignedly. Peter had snuck back into her mind. She really didn't like to think about him; she wished she had never met him. But then again, had she not met him… so much would be different, enough so that it was impossible to say quite what.

Without conscious awareness, Gwen dipped into her memories of Peter.

* * *

One Friday night, Gwen decided to don her nearly-new Spider-Woman costume and go out web-swinging. She had planned to stop by the park where Em Jay and her band were playing that night, just for kicks. She had told Peter about her plans, hoping to maybe meet him there and knowing that he would probably be interested even if only for the sake of seeing Em Jay.

Gwen had only possessed her web-shooters for the previous two weeks, and while she had practiced as frequently as possible, she was far from being adept. However, she had only crashed into two streetlights, clipped the side of four buildings, and almost hit one car, which meant that she was improving.

Improvement was key.

Gwen reached the park and perched atop a nearby gazebo, scanning the crowd for her friend. She soon spotted him hanging around near the stage. However, several people also spotted her.

"Holy cow, how'd that guy get up on that gazebo?"

"Hey, I think my mom almost hit that girl with her car the other day!"

"What's a gazebo?"

"Why's he wearing both a hood and a mask?"

"Oh my GOD it has weird EYES this is UNREAL!"

Eventually, almost all of the crowd, including the band, was looking her way, pointing, taking pictures. Gwen grimaced, thankful for the mask.

Peter stepped up onto the stage amid the confusion, grabbing the mic. Gwen saw him do so, although most of the crowd was too focused on her to notice.

She wondered what on earth he was up to. Peter normally hated speaking in front of crowds, although she did see that his eyes were firmly screwed shut.

All of a sudden, Gwen heard a loud voice yell through her mind, "GREEN MONSTER". She slapped her hand to the back of her head.

Peter yelled into the mic, "HEY!"

The crowd quieted down and looked at him.

Peter, wearing an uncharacteristically solemn frown, started to speak. "I want you all to understand what I'm doing and why I'm about to do it."

The crowd was stunned into silence. Even Em Jay and the other members of Jackpot were too flabbergasted to move.

The voice in Gwen's head kept repeating over and over, "GREEN MONSTER".

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. Jealousy was the green-eyed monster. But why was Peter jealous?

Peter reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small vial full of an acidic green liquid. The crowd gasped and collectively took a few steps backward. A few people in the rear turned and fled.

"Don't worry, this isn't a bomb," Peter tried to joke, but his flat affect belied any amount of humour which his words might have held. The crowd did not look reassured.

"This vial holds an untested serum, originally researched by Ozcorp but perfected by yours truly, which is intended to bestow upon the consumer superhuman abilities. In a few minutes, I'm going to drink it."

"No! Don't do it!" yelled someone from the middle of the crowd.

The corners of Peter's mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. "Ah, but I haven't told you my reasoning yet."

Gwen leaned in closer, a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach growing to match the itching at the nape of her neck.

"You know," Peter began, "I've been overshadowed as of late. I've been overshadowed by somebody whom I know and whom I've been helping out and whom I'm close to. She was courteous enough to join us tonight."

Peter extended the hand with the vial in the direction of Gwen, who didn't move.

"She was recently granted superpowers, you know, like Captain America. I helped her out. I put in hours of free time that I didn't have towards helping her, towards giving her gear and helping her practice her powers. And how does she thank me? She doesn't. She shoves me aside like she shoves everybody else aside. She only cares about herself! And she left me in the dust, no thanks, no gratitude, nothing!

"This girl, 'Spider-Woman', thinks she's so special. But you know what? She's not. She's just a little girl. Just a kid with a dorky Halloween costume. She doesn't think I'm special. Nobody thinks I'm special. But you know what? I'm gonna be special in just a minute. I'm gonna drink this, and I'm gonna be special, just like her. More special, even. You'll see. You'll all see."

Peter uncorked the vial and tossed the cap away. He then looked at Gwen, his eyes boring into hers. "You know what?" he said, more quietly than he had been speaking before. "I idolised you. I wanted to be like you. And then I realised how horrible of a person you are. I wanna be you, but better. I'm GONNA be you, but better."

He raised the vial to his lips.

Peter's words had cut Gwen to the bone. She reacted too slowly, shooting a webline that yanked back an emptied vial.

Gwen yelled, "NO!"

Peter smirked. "Don't try and stop me."

Somebody had had the bright idea to call 911. A few police cruisers showed up at the park. Police officers jumped out of their cars and rushed over to the scene.

The crowd started to panic, but nothing happened.

Peter frowned, anxiously running a hand through his short brown hair. "I don't know how long it was supposed to take bef-"

He interrupted his own statement with an earsplitting scream.

GREEN MONSTER

The crowd finally lost control and fled the scene as Peter's skin started to morph. His body stretched like Silly Putty caught in invisible hands. Gwen yelped in horror, transfixed by the grotesque train wreck that was his transformation.

Peter shrieked again, but it wasn't a human shriek. It was a screech worthy of the _Cretaceous Park_ movies. His clothes tore open as green scales started sprouting all over his body. His hand, which was now twice its normal size and bore razor-sharp talons, crushed the puny microphone like a twig.

Peter had become a lizard-like monstrosity. He roared one last time and charged at the police officers, who took shelter behind their cruisers and opened fire. Gwen had half a mind to stop them, but when their bullets started bouncing harmlessly off of Peter's scales, she decided to wait and watch for the time being.

As soon as Peter decapitated the first officer, Gwen knew that she needed to do something, so she shot a webline at him and pulled him off balance. Peter snarled, then redirected his attention towards her.

"Oh boy," she muttered as Peter charged at her, his giant tail lashing behind him. She leaped out of the way as he smashed through the gazebo, sending shards of wood flying everywhere. As she landed, Gwen turned and started rapidly firing webshots at Peter, covering him with semisolid webbing. He tore through the webbing as if it were paper, then charged again.

Gwen leaped into the air and landed on Peter's back. It looked like she would have to physically subdue him. But how exactly did one stop a rampaging lizard-beast?

Gwen noticed that the police officers were holding their fire, apparently waiting for her to get out of the way.

"Kid!" one cop yelled through a megaphone. "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry, I got this!" Gwen yelled back, wrapping her arms around Peter's neck in a chokehold.

She was lying through her teeth. She had no idea what she was doing.

Peter thrashed around, trying to free himself from this pesky insect, but Gwen held on tightly. His startled roars started to weaken and change into whines. His thrashing grew ever more frantic, and he eventually managed to grab Gwen's right leg and start pulling on it. Gwen yelled and shifted her grip so that she could hold Peter's neck with only one arm. With her free hand, she started striking Peter's claws, desperately trying to extract them from her lacerated leg.

Peter decided to try a different tactic. He let go of Gwen's leg and backed up into a large oak tree, smashing Gwen between him and it. He kept striking it repeatedly until Gwen was too bruised and beaten to hold onto him any longer. She dropped like a stone as the tree finally uprooted.

Gwen came to her senses a few seconds later, just in time to see Peter charging at the line of police officers, who were futilely shooting at him. "Call the SWAT!" she heard one of them yell. The outburst was followed by several jarring screams of pain.

She had to stop Peter before he killed them all.

* * *

Loud chatter from a group of girls passing through the hall outside Gwen's room snapped out of her reverie.

She missed Peter. She missed the poor guy with all her heart.

Reminiscing about him wouldn't help anything.

It was better to just forget, to stop thinking about him, to move on.

Gwen wished she didn't have to move on. But she did. She had to push aside her feelings, bottle them up out of harm's way, because they were only going to get in the way. They were only going to stop her from being Spider-Woman.

She couldn't risk losing anyone else.

Gwen shook the depressing thoughts from her mind. There was no time to worry.

She thought back to her earlier mental debate on what would have happened if she hadn't become Spider-Woman, and she recalled how in this universe at least, Peter had been bitten by the irradiated spider.

What had happened to this universe's Gwen Stacy?

Was she alive? Was she dead? Was she a monster? Had she even existed in the first place?

Gwen was filled with a sudden compulsion to know. She wanted to know what the other her was like, what her family was like, how her father had fared, all of that.

But that wasn't something she should worry about right now.

Gwen lifted her phone from the bedside table (she had also stolen a charging cord from Walblue's) and checked the time. It was 10:40 pm. She ought to hit the sack. Tomorrow was a school day.

Gwen set down her phone and drifted off to sleep.


	10. Day 3 - MILES OF INTEREST

**Sorry about the delay in terms of updates! Expect a new chapter either once or twice a week from now on. I will update on Mondays and Thursdays.**

**Also, a bit of irony that I noticed a month or so ago (yes, I've been writing this thing for a while): Gwen is impersonating a Wanda Maximoff while at Visions Academy.**

**If you don't get it, I'm not gonna explain it.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

Gwen blinked and rolled over. It was morning already, and she had a slight headache. She wished that night time could last a little longer.

Speaking of which, what time was it?

She lifted her phone from the table. It was 8:13 am.

Oh no. Class started at 8:30. She had forgotten to set her alarm.

Gwen hauled herself out of bed and threw on her uniform. It was a bit too big for her, but she didn't have the time to deal with any minor inconveniences.

She darted through a silent hallway to reach the hall bathroom. It was unnerving, going to a school as selective and rigorous as was Visions Academy. Apparently, you had to be super smart to even be considered for it, and Gwen wasn't exactly what one would call academically rigorous. But if this was where she was supposed to be, she had to do her best.

She wondered how that other girl, Wanda, whose identity she was borrowing, had gotten in. Was she just that smart? Was there trickery involved? Did it really matter?

Gwen dashed back to her room and stuffed the thick navy folder full of her back work into her backpack. It was now 8:24. Here was hoping that the trip to class wouldn't be too difficult.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

She fell flat on her face as she passed through the doorway.

It was just her luck.

How on earth would she stop people from noticing her atomic disjunctions during class?

She would have to figure that out on the fly, so it seemed.

As Gwen jogged through the halls, she thought about her veritable mountains of back work. There were slide notes from history (keeping two different dimensional timelines separate was not something she was looking forward to), worksheets about trig functions, a physics problem set, a set of questions about the book Great Expectations, and plenty of other things to do. If she actually was Wanda Maximilian, or whatever her fake name was, she'd be working on these assignments until kingdom come.

At least Gwen didn't technically have to work on any of the papers.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

However, in addition to feeling bad for not turning anything in (curse her conscience a thousand times), she needed to at least pretend to be a normal student and not a trespasser from a parallel universe.

Gwen started to chuckle. Her life sounded like a story from a cheap sci-fi novelette, or worse, an amateur superhero fanfiction. But this was her reality. Truth was indeed stranger than fiction.

She managed to get to class right on time, thanks to her wall-crawling ability. Upon walking in, the teacher directed her to the seating chart. Gwen sat in the second row, near the middle of the room. There was an empty desk to her left.

The teacher scanned the aisles of desks and asked, "All right, does anybody know where Morales is?"

Nobody responded.

The teacher – her name was Mrs. Quinn, Gwen recalled – nodded. "That's an attendance deduction for him. Now, today is Technology Tuesday, so we're going to watch a fifteen-or-so-minute video about this cool new technology that's currently in development before we get to our lesson." She pulled forward a bulky television on a metal cart and slid in a DVD.

The video opened with a brief animated Alchemax logo sequence.

OCTAGONS

A young woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties walked onto the set. "Hi, everybody, my name's Doctor Olivia Octavius. I'm a theoretical physicist, chemist, and engineer at Alchemax, one of the world's leading research institutions. And I'm here today to explain the process of interdimensional transportation."

Gwen's heart skipped a beat. She wanted to yell out something, to express some form of shock, but she couldn't. She was in class; plus, she was undercover. She had to act normal, no matter what.

Gwen took out her notebook and pen and furiously jotted down notes as Dr. Octavius jabbered enthusiastically about spacetime and quantum mechanics.

The lady's name sounded eerily familiar. Maybe Gwen knew her other-dimensional counterpart somehow?

Was this lady the reason why Gwen was in this strange new world?

All of a sudden, the door squeaked open. Heads swivelled around as a young dark-skinned boy snuck into the classroom, tripping over his untied shoelaces.

MILES OF INTEREST

Gwen felt the back of her neck itch.

Mrs. Quinn paused the video. "I see you skulking around in the dark, there, Morales."

Morales froze, wide-eyed like a kid caught stealing from a cookie jar.

"Well, uh, Einstein said that time is relative, so maybe I'm not late. Everyone else is early?"

Morales grinned uneasily.

MILES OF INTEREST

So this guy was important. He didn't look particularly out of the ordinary, yet Gwen felt compelled to talk to him. Her head was aflame with ideas, with too many questions, with not enough answers.

But not in the classroom.

Nobody laughed at Morales' poorly-timed relativity joke. Both the sub and the students were stone-faced, watching him, unamused. Gwen saw one guy turn to the girl sitting next to him and whisper something.

Feeling as though noise might relieve her of some of her mental tribulations, Gwen chuckled. She immediately regretted it upon noticing people turn to look at her, including Morales.

"I'm sorry, it was just so quiet," she half-explained.

Morales, his cheeks a vivid shade of red, checked the seating chart, then sat down next to Gwen. Mrs. Quinn turned the video back on, and Gwen refocused her attention on it, trying to disregard her spider-sense's insistently repeated messages.

MILES OF INTEREST

Ten seconds later, Morales leaned over and whispered to Gwen, "You liked my joke?"

"Well, yeah, but not because it was funny," she truthfully replied.

His face fell.

"It was smart, that's what it was. I liked that."

Morales smiled and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

All the while, Gwen tried to figure out what significance this kid had. His name might be Miles, which would make sense. Was he secretly a superhero? He didn't seem like it. Was he secretly a supervillain? Again, he didn't seem like it.

More than anything, the kid seemed normal. Perhaps that was the key. Maybe he wasn't quite as normal as he seemed.

Gwen decided to not dwell on the issue quite so much and to focus more on the interdimensional transportation video. The information in it was both oddly fascinating and much more pertinent to her problem at hand.


	11. Day 3 - GAYNESS IMPEDIMENT

**To the guest reviewer who commented on my previous chapter, yes, I am moving into the movie's script, and I do want to remain as faithful to its plot as possible. However, I don't want to quote directly from the movie because I don't want to get sued. Quotes from the movie are Sony's intellectual property, not mine, so I don't have freedom to use them without their permission. I also fear that my story will get taken down from this site if I draw too heavily from the copyrighted material.**

**So yes, I would love to use the script and quote ad verbatim from _Spiderverse_, but I also don't want to get in legal trouble for doing so.**

**Anyway, you could always pass off the dialogue differences as Gwen not remembering the conversational exchanges in the same way that Miles did. Everybody's memory is different.**

**Thanks again, and enjoy!**

* * *

The rest of Gwen's first day of school passed by in a blur. Miles was only in her physics class, so she unfortunately didn't get a chance to talk to him again. She struggled to maintain her shoddy Russian accent during her classes and eventually gave up, instead choosing to use some indeterminate speech problem and claiming that she was trying to fake an American accent, if she spoke up at all.

Cover stories were not her forte.

On top of all her back assignments, Gwen was given an essay, more precalculus problems, and hours worth of reading from her history textbook. The work rapidly piled up. When she returned to her room that evening, her first thought was to knock some of her homework out of the way so that she could have more free time later on to swing around and acclimate to Brooklyn.

But of course, procrastination had a higher priority.

The second Gwen set pen to paper, she fell into the jaws of the mental trap of imagining what her other-dimensional counterpart might be like.

Gwen tried to focus. She really did. But curiosity and boredom bested her, and within ten minutes, she had swung out of the dorm window, wearing her Spider-Woman costume under her street clothes.

She didn't know what she was looking for. All she knew was that she wanted information, and she had a vague idea of where she could get it. Gwen didn't have a password to log into the school computers yet, but the government records office could probably tell her what she needed to know.

She needed a map, at the very least. Where could she find a map?

She could just look around and hope for the best.

Gwen vaguely recalled passing a building that looked official on her unnecessarily long walk to Visions Academy. Perhaps she could figure out what to do from there. That is, if she could remember where the building was.

Gwen changed direction so that she was heading roughly southeast, staying high up both to avoid notice and to get a better view of her surroundings. Brooklyn looked nice from above. Then again, the effect may have been caused by the sun starting to set, cloaking the city in long shadows. Streetlights flickered on, combating the growing blackness.

Any city, no matter how ugly, looked better if it was partly encased in darkness. That was how darkness worked.

After a few minutes of swinging through the shadowy canyons, Gwen spotted a marble building with giant columns in front of it. That looked like the place. She dropped to street level and removed her mask in the cover of darkness.

Gwen entered the building and found herself in a large marble lobby. A few well-attired men and women passed through it, exiting the building. A sign posted on the wall listed the various department offices and their respective room numbers. She studied it, trying to figure out where the public records would be held.

GUARD ON WATCH

Gwen whirled around and saw a uniformed man walking down the hall towards her, his boots clicking on the tiled floor. "What're you looking for, miss?" he asked.

"Uh, sir, uh, do you know where the public records are?"

The guard smiled. "Sure. Room 217. Up the stairs, take a left, then it should be the last door on the end. But I'd check back tomorrow if I were you; we're closing down for the night."

Gwen nodded. "Yes, sir, thanks! Thanks so much!"

The man gave her a brief wave, then turned and started heading in the other direction.

He abruptly stopped, turned around, and gave Gwen another once-over.

SUSPICIOUS PERSONS

Gwen started briskly walking towards the entrance, hoping that there was nothing wrong with the guard.

The guard muttered under his breath, "Why does that kid look so familiar?"

He soon perked up and yelled, "Hey! Stop!"

Gwen broke out into a run, bursting through the doors and heading out into the street.

Oh, so the spider-sense was referring to her.

The guard, now emerging from the building, placed a call on his radio as he chased after her.

It looked like Gwen was still wanted in this place after all.

She was an idiot for entering a government building while being a fugitive from the law.

She rounded a corner, trying to put as many visual obstructions between her and her pursuer as possible.

GAYNESS IMPEDIMENT

Wha… How did… What sort of an impact would that-

Her perceptions misted over by confusion, Gwen turned down another street and bowled over a young lady. They both hit the pavement.

Gwen scrambled to her feet. "I am so sorry, miss."

The lady started to haul herself up, dusting herself off. "Nah, it's on me. I shoulda been looking where I was going."

Gwen extended a hand and helped her up. "Hey, it's my bad. But no hard feelings either way, right?"

The two of them locked eyes for a moment.

The lady whom Gwen had knocked down cleared her throat, breaking the awkward silence. "Uh, y-yeah, all right, no problem."

Gwen let go of her hand and started to backpedal, having heard a distant police siren. "Yeah, I, uh, listen, I gotta go. Have a good night. Stay frosty."

"Okay, see ya!"

Gwen turned around and started to run again. She ducked into an alley and pulled on her mask and gloves, then leaped to the top of a building. To avoid notice, she decided to stick to rooftop running for the time being.

She did not have time to dwell on that incident.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen checked her stride and skidded to a halt before leaping across a wide thoroughfare. She spasmed, jolted forward, and fell off the roof, tumbling helplessly to the road below. She smashed into the asphalt, yelping in pain, and regained her freedom of movement just in time to scramble out of the way of an oncoming truck. It clipped her foot, and Gwen hollered again. She shot a webline at the building from which she had fallen and yoinked herself away from the danger, clinging to the wall.

That brief incident of terror hadn't helped her headache in the slightest.

Gwen took a minute to calm her racing heart. She climbed up the side of the building and surveyed the city, which was dark now but filled with multicoloured pinpricks of light. Where was she?

Off in the distance, she spotted the silhouette of what looked like her school. She shot out a webline and swung towards it.

Upon returning to Visions Academy, Gwen was suddenly struck by a wave of exhaustion. The past couple of days (along with the multiple atomic disjunctions) had taken a toll on her.

It looked like she wasn't getting any homework done tonight. At least none of it was due the next day.

Gwen climbed through her dorm room window and fell backwards onto her bed, not even bothering to change out of her costume, before falling asleep.


	12. Day 4 - UNSTARTED FIRE

Gwen pulled off her mask and rolled onto her side. She slid her phone out of her pocket and checked the time. It was 7:56, and class started at 8:30. She hoisted herself out of bed and got ready for school.

At least she had woken up earlier than she had yesterday, despite forgetting to set an alarm again. She chose to set one for tomorrow now, just so she wouldn't forget.

The school day seemed to drag on forever. Gwen wanted nothing more than to go back to the town hall and find out more about Anti-Gwen, as she had dubbed her dimensional counterpart. She was also tired, despite having gotten plenty of sleep the previous night. Her head still hurt. She wondered if she should take an aspirin.

After what felt like three times the duration that had actually passed, Gwen was free. She practically ran back to her room, pulled off her uniform, and threw on her costume. Tonight was an undercover night.

Gwen was already halfway out the window before remembering that she had a precalc worksheet due tomorrow. With great reluctance, she stepped down from the sill and committed herself to completing at least a few of the problems before heading out.

Radians were obnoxious.

Gwen hurriedly finished up the last problem, pulled on her mask, and hopped out the window. She swung to the southeast, staying up high to avoid notice.

LIKE YOU

Gwen looked down and noticed a man leaning against a streetlamp and smoking a cigarette. He wore a black trenchcoat and fedora and generally looked as though he had stepped straight out of a 1930s gangster movie. He looked out of place, even aside from his choice of clothing.

A bright dot of red and blue flashed in the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see Pet- no. She turned her head to see Spiderman more clearly. He was headed directly toward one specific brownstone. Gwen couldn't tell what was odd about it until she saw the trail of dark smoke rising from a nonexistent chimney.

UNSTARTED FIRE

Anti-Gwen could wait. Right now, there were people in trouble.

Gwen abruptly changed direction and swung as quickly as she could toward the source of the smoke. She didn't care if people saw her now; there were civilians to save. Stealth took a lower priority.

Gwen reached the fire not long after Spider-Pete had. She clung to the wall and peered in through an open window. A little girl, concealed by the thick smoke, faded in and out of view. Gwen took a deep breath and prepared herself to climb inside, then froze. The gray smoke may have masked the distinctive bright red costume, but the form was unmistakable. Spider-Pete lifted the girl into his arms. He bullied his way through the rubble and flames towards the entrance from which he had come.

Gwen crawled out of Spider-Pete's line of sight as he leaped to the street below and gently set the girl down on the sidewalk. He gave the girl a quick headrub, then pulled out a cellphone.

She faintly heard Spider-Pete say, "Yeah, it's Spidey. There's a fire on, uh…" He glanced at a nearby street sign. "On the corner of Lee and Harper. Top floor. There was a girl alone in the room, but I got her out. Yeah, no problem. Thanks. Bye. Oh, and tell your kids I say hi."

He hung up and slid his phone into a pouch on his belt.

It looked like Spider-Pete had everything under control. Gwen could go on her way now.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

She pulled herself up onto the roof of the building just before spasming uncontrollably, repeatedly, and painfully.

She waited for Spider-Pete to swing off before she set off for the government building again.

It bothered Gwen that she had forgotten about UNSTARTED FIRE. It was one of the messages she had received from her spider-sense while traveling between dimensions, and she hadn't remembered it when it could have come in handy. Had she forgotten any other messages? She would have to wrack her brain later that night.

But for now, she had to figure out how to evade the security in a government office.

It looked like she would have to play it by ear – again – since she had arrived.

Gwen perched on the top of a nearby office building, surveying the scene. Were there any open windows through which she could enter?

UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY

She knew that already. Sometimes, she wished that her spider-sense would tell her something that she didn't know.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen dove for cover upon seeing a camera flash from ground level. Here was hoping that whomever had taken the picture hadn't gotten a proper image of her.

She cautiously poked her head back up, gazing around anxiously.

That window, up on the top floor, looked open. Gwen backed up a few paces, then ran and leaped onto the side of the town hall. She peered in through the half-open window and saw a middle-aged lady sitting at a desk, typing furiously on her computer. That room was a no-go.

Gwen climbed down to look into the windows on the second floor, which was where the records office was located. She saw one that was open a crack. Nobody was inside of it, as far as she could see: there were too many file cabinets in the room to be sure.

Even if there was somebody in the room, there was plenty of cover, so entering that way might not be a terrible idea.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Not for the first time, Gwen thought about how stupid of an idea it was to break into a government building, especially when she was wanted by the police. If she were caught, it would all be over.

Did she really need to know about Anti-Gwen that badly?

Gwen slid open the window.

Yes, she did.


	13. Day 4 - OFFICE REENTRY

Gwen slipped through the window and landed like a cat on the soft carpet floor. She listened for a moment. There were no traces of humans.

GUARD ON WATCH

As Gwen approached the door leading out, she heard the faint clicking sound of shoes on tile. Someone must have been walking in the hall. When she reached the door, she lay prone and peered through the gap between it and the carpet. She saw a splotch of black contrasting with the white floor.

It would only make sense that the town hall security would step up their game after learning that an escaped convict had visited the previous night. It was her own fault that this mission was so challenging. She really should have known better, but curiosity had gotten the better of her not once but twice.

Gwen watched the black splotch intently and saw it turn and move away from the door. She quickly stood up, opened the door, and left the room, hopping onto the ceiling. She shut the door, which closed with a thunk. A sign which read "CLOSED, WILL BE BACK SOON" clattered against it.

The guard, who was now at the other end of the hall, whirled around and saw an elderly man leave another room further down from where Gwen was. He nodded to the man and turned back around, relaxing slightly.

Gwen breathed a sigh of relief. Now she needed to figure out where room 217 was.

She happened to glance at the door through which she had just exited. A placard to the right of it read "217".

Gwen sighed. She had gone through all that stress for nothing. She waited for the guard to turn down another hallway before dropping down and stealing back into room 217.

Once inside, Gwen studied the contents of the room. There was a desk in the left corner bearing a computer and a number of binders, and a variety of file cabinets scattered throughout the room. Perhaps one of the binders would help her figure out where the files that she was looking for were contained.

She took out and opened up the leftmost one. It was empty. So was the second one, except for a few dividers. But the third one had stuff in it. Upon closer inspection, the papers in the binder were a record of all the people who had visited the office in the last few weeks. The last two binders also contained nothing useful.

Gwen sighed. There had to be some easier way to find this information.

She tried to open up the computer. The login screen was password-protected. Of course it was.

Maybe she could see if the cabinets were somehow…oh.

Gwen looked around at the clearly-labeled filing cabinets.

She was an idiot.

She spotted the drawer labeled "Sm-St" and hurried over to it. The files were most likely organised by last name.

Gwen pulled on the drawer and realised that it was locked. Was there a keyring in the desk?

She walked back over to the desk and opened the drawer to the left of the rolling chair. In it was a set of keys, each one labeled for the filing cabinet which it opened.

She took the one labeled "R-S" off of the ring and successfully unlocked the drawer of interest, replacing the key afterwards. She slid the drawer open and thumbed through the manila folders until she found one labeled "Stacy".

Gwen's heart was racing. She was anxious to discover more about Anti-Gwen, but she also was worried about what she might find. What sort of person was the other her?

Gwen flipped open the folder. There were a number of different-sized pieces of paper in it. The first one was a marriage certificate for George Andrew Stacy and Helen Selinske.

Those were her parents.

The kicker was, they weren't. They were Anti-Gwen's parents.

The second paper was full of indecipherable legalese making some mention of her fath… no. Not her father. That other guy being a "Registered Independent". It also listed his address. Gwen took out her notepad and jotted it down, just in case.

The third paper was a death certificate for one Gwendolyn Stacy.

Gwen stared at the paper, feeling as though she was reading her own death warrant. She had known that this situation was possible, but she wasn't prepared for it. How could she have been?

Gwendolyn Stacy had died at the age of 21 from blunt force head trauma due to being struck by a car. She had been in otherwise excellent health and had been enrolled in Empire State University.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen fell sideways and was wracked by a wave of pain and nausea. Her headache worsened.

The pieces fell into place.

She was going to die if she stayed here much longer. She was going to die because she was stuck in the wrong dimension, because something something relativity.

She was already dead, in effect. The death certificate which she held in her hands was proof. She was dead. A ghost. She shouldn't be here.

Gwen pushed herself up from the floor. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted to go home. She wanted everything to go back to normal.

At the same time, she knew it wouldn't, which scared her.

She felt like crying but didn't give in. She knew better than to let her feelings get the best of her, and she'd had lots of practice bottling them up.

OFFICE REENTRY

Gwen shoved the folder back in the drawer, kicked it closed, and leaped out the window just before a tall lady wearing a crisply pressed pencil skirt and blouse walked into the room. She carefully slid the window shut, then took off, heading back to school.


	14. Day 5 - SECURITY CALL

Gwen woke up at the sound of her alarm and rubbed her eyes. It was Thursday; there were only two more days until the weekend. On the other hand, there was only one day left until her back assignments were due. She had completed part of it last night but had grown fatigued rather quickly. Additionally, she had been distracted by worries about being trapped in this dimension for the rest of her abbreviated life.

Out of curiosity and suspicion, she had paid more attention to her atomic disjunctions. They had increased in frequency over the past five days. Also, they had become more painful and had lasted for longer.

The atomic disjunctions had been a pain during class, pun not intended. Gwen had to leave roughly once every two periods to spaz out in peace. It was a good thing that her spider-sense warned her about upcoming disjunctions, because otherwise, matters would have been even worse.

Gwen's history teacher, Mr. Adams, had grown suspicious from her asking to be excused to the bathroom every day. After she returned that day, he asked, "Forgive me for intruding, but why do you keep leaving class?"

Gwen managed to stammer out, "I-I-It's, uh, es ze feminine issues."

Mr. Adams was taken aback and stopped inquiring.

The excuse wasn't worth the laughter garnered from her classmates. Cover stories were not her forte.

Gwen returned to her room around 5 pm, thoroughly worn out. She'd had five separate atomic disjunctions, and her whole body ached, especially her head. She wanted nothing more than to relax and go web-swinging. No, that wasn't right. She wanted to go home.

An idea that had lain dormant in her head for a couple of days resurfaced. She could go to Alchemax. They had a dimensional transporter. They could help her get home.

No. That was a terrible idea. No way was she ousting herself from her undercover position just for the slim likelihood that she might be able to find help.

But it might be her only ticket back. What was the likelihood of some quantum boogaloo picking her up and tossing her home?

Gwen steeled her resolve. She was going to Alchemax. She was going home.

She flipped through her physics notes which serendipitously contained the location of the facility. She stuck all of her belongings in her backpack and donned her Spider-Woman costume. With any luck, she wouldn't return.

She took off from her dorm window and headed west. Alchemax was about two miles away as the crow flew or, alternately, as the mutant dimensional castaway swung. All that was left for her to do was to figuratively sit back and enjoy the ride.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen swung a bit too close to a restaurant window, and several patrons gaped at her. One of them pulled out his phone and snapped some pictures. She paid them no attention and kept going. They would never see her again.

The sun sunk ever lower as she closed in on Alchemax. Before long, Gwen was perched on top of a tall birch tree. She could see the skyscraper not too far off.

She landed at the front door to the facility and walked right in, feeling more confident than she had felt in quite some time. She rapped on the receptionist's window. The lady at the desk on the other side looked up and screamed.

"GHOST! No, wait! INTRUDER!"

SECURITY CALL

Yes, this was a terrible decision. But Gwen refused to back down from her terrible decision. It was too late, anyway.

The woman's hand inched under the table to press some manner of button. Gwen quickly pulled open the window.

"Wait wait wait!" she exclaimed.

The lady paused, her face stricken with terror.

Gwen held up her hands defensively. "I'm not a ghost. I'm not here to hurt you. I just need some help, ma'am. Please."

The secretary looked at her suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Could I talk to one of your head scientists, please? This is really urgent."

SECURITY CALL

Gwen backed away slowly as the lady glanced at something on the wall and reached back under her desk. "I, uh, we'll see abou-"

All of a sudden, a blaring alarm sounded. Gwen jolted. A voice crackled from the intercom in the ceiling: "Security breach on lobby floor. Code turquoise. Evacuate all visitors and non-essential employees immediately. I repeat, evacuate all visitors and non-essential employees immediately."

Gwen took the opportunity to burst through the door and enter the facility.

The secretary leaped up and threw out her arms to block Gwen, two seconds too late.

Gwen ran through the halls of Alchemax at random, looking for any place that seemed helpful.

Should she be here?

MEH

That definitely didn't sound promising.

Alchemax was a creepily polished place with a confusing floor plan. Did research facilities in this dimension typically consist of white-coated scientists toting handheld plasma cannons and running to stop a superhero invasion?

The facility was surprisingly well-prepared for such an unlikely scenario. Those plasma shots hurt, and the scientists had decent aim.

Maybe it wasn't all that uncommon? Maybe Spider-Pete had broken into this place before?

After beating a few nerds senseless and taking several wrong turns, Gwen stumbled across a directory placard mounted next to an elevator. She stopped and read it. Maybe what she was looking for – she wasn't quite sure what she was looking for anymore – wasn't on the ground floor.

The label for Floor B-3 read "Dimensional Studies; Neuropathic Technology; Mail Room". That looked promising. Gwen pressed the elevator call button.

Right. There was an emergency. Code purple or something. The elevator wouldn't work. She'd have to take the stairs. Where were the stairs?

Gwen looked around for a set of stairs. There was a door not far down the hall that looked like it led to some.

She ran across the hall, evading plasma cannon fire, and flung open the door.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

A spasm struck Gwen while she fled down the stairs. She lost her balance and fell down a level, bowling over a lady on the landing.

They pulled themselves to their respective feet.

OCTAGONS

Gwen took a look at whom she had ran into and gaped. "Doctor Octavius?"

Doctor Octavius grinned. She didn't seem taken aback by Gwen's attire. "Yep, that's my name. Sorry for knocking you down, sweetie."

"D-do you have a moment?"

The doctor, who had started climbing again, turned around. "I'm a very busy woman, but it depends. What do you need?"

Gwen pulled off her mask and stammered, "I, uh, I, you see, I'm from another dimension. D-do you, do you think you can get me home, Doctor?"

Doctor Octavius blinked, absorbing the revelation. "Hmm. Is that so? Oh, and you can call me Liv. That's what all my friends do."

"Yeah, uh, Liv, it's true. I got here almost a week ago. You do research on that type of stuff, right?"

Liv grinned. "Yes, I do."

There was something unsettling about the researcher's smile that Gwen couldn't quite identify. Maybe it was because her mouth stretched a bit too wide; maybe it was something about the slant of her brow; maybe it was the way in which her glasses reflected the harsh fluorescent light and obscured her eyes. Whatever it was, it made Gwen nervous. She started to back away.

Liv reached under her lab coat and continued, "I'll see what we can do about that."

RUN NOW

Gwen turned tail and leaped down the stairs, but a long plastic arm shot out of Liv's coat and grabbed her by the neck, smashing her head into the wall. She struggled to free herself, but its pincer grip was too powerful. The arm bashed her head into the concrete again and again until she went limp, consciousness giving way to a dizzying blackness.


	15. Day 5 - OCTAGONS

Gwen woke up gradually to the high pitched hum of fluorescent lights. She stared blankly at the black ceiling, blinking a trickle of blood out of her eyes. Her forehead ached. Actually, every part of her ached, felt restrained and tight.

OCTAGONS

"So the spider finally awakens," said Liv. At least, the lady standing at the other end of the room resembled her to the extent that Gwen's blurry vision could distinguish between figures. The primary difference was her clothing. Liv now wore a green and black onesie and had three, no, four long tubular arms, each ending in a translucent pincer, protruding from a harness on her torso.

"Nuh?" Gwen mumbled sleepily.

Liv turned away from some sort of black rectangular blur. "Still tired, are you? Don't worry. You'll have plenty of time for rest."

"Whaddya wan' from me?" Gwen slurred, blinking rapidly in an effort to clear the fog from her mind. For some reason, she couldn't reach up to rub her eyes.

Liv walked to her side. "You've got an awfully pretty face, you know. Except for this thing." One tubular arm reached over her head and tapped Gwen's eyebrow piercing. "How nonconformist of you."

Gwen grimaced, less at the jolt of pain than at Liv's condescending tone. "I like it. And I don't care if you don't."

The fog abruptly lifted.

Gwen was in a medium-sized, low-ceilinged room with frosted glass walls and a white tiled floor. It was brightly lit, despite the darkness outside. There was a computer about twelve feet away and a workbench covered with science-y stuff two feet to her right. Her backpack and mask stood on another, more distant table. Gwen herself was strapped to a black and green chair by thick plastic bands. She could move her head and hands, but that was all.

HOSTILE SITUATION

Her spider-sense could easily contend for the position of Captain Obvious.

What was this, the second time that she had been imprisoned? She needed to up her game big-time.

Gwen shook her head. "You couldn't have just sent me back home, could you?"

Liv chuckled. Her insincere grin remained on her face as though it had been stuck there with epoxy. "No, sweetie, of course not. You're the perfect guinea pig for me to understand more about dimensional travelling, especially the effects that it's had on you."

Gwen strained against the bands. They were an awful lot tougher than they looked.

"Don't bother struggling. I've analysed your strength levels. You're stronger than you look. It's truly fascinating how your spider DNA has affected your physique. Regardless, these bands can only be opened by me and this lever." Liv gestured to a small metal switch on the workbench.

Gwen immediately knew exactly how she would escape. She nearly snickered, but her face remained impassive. She was well-practiced at concealing her emotions. Still, she didn't trust herself to speak.

Liv began to pace back and forth and continued, "I figure you'll appreciate being enlightened about your situation. I mean, you have nothing better to do. And I do love imparting my knowledge of science upon others.

"The way you got here is utterly fascinating. I still can't figure out how the dimensional transporter hasn't even been activated yet but you arrived last week."

"It what?" asked a befuddled Gwen.

"Yes. We're due to test it tomorrow evening. I can't imagine the test will go very well, seeing as you're now here."

"Tell me more about it."

Liv chuckled to herself. "Oh… that's none of your concern. Besides, how would I know if it hasn't happened yet?

"The big question is, what's happening to you? I'm sure that'll interest you far more." She clapped her hands together. "So! I'm sure you've noticed those odd spasms that you have every once in a while, right?"

"Atomic disjunctions," Gwen corrected.

"Ato- huh." Liv ran over to the monitor and typed forcefully on her keyboard. "That's a good term for it. Well, the thing is, your atoms aren't really jazzed about being in another dimension. The rules of physics and such are a bit different here than they are where you're from. So your atoms are breaking down. Slowly. Agonisingly, I imagine. Have you been in much pain?"

"Well, I've been getting headaches, and I'm tired all the time," Gwen answered truthfully.

"Those must be side effects. I imagine they'll worsen as time passes. You've been here for how long now? Five days? Five and a half?"

Gwen nodded.

"Given your superhuman durability, I imagine you'll be dead in about a week."

She was right. She was a ghost. She was going to die.

But at least she wouldn't die holed up in this lab.

"That's why you have to stay here. I need to study the long-term effects of dimensional travel before you disintegrate. While I could wait or find the other one, you're already h-"

"Wait," interrupted Gwen. "Other one?"

Liv clapped her hands together. "Ah, yes! I've detected traces of another being, similar to you, in Brooklyn."

That was intriguing news. Maybe that was a good thing. She could get help from him. Or her. Or maybe he had ill intentions. Not all people with superpowers were good. Regardless, Gwen now had a goal.

Liv strode over to the workbench. "Well, anyway, now that you're awake, I ought to perform some more tests on you. Don't worry. I promise they won't hurt too much."

It was now or never. Gwen looked down at her gloved hands, chuckling inwardly.

"There's one factor that you haven't considered," she said.

Liv frowned, looking up. Her claws continued to fidget with what looked like a futuristic syringe.

"And what's that?"

"You gotta watch the hands."

Gwen fired a webline from her glove at the switch, flicking it off. The bands snapped open, and she leaped to her feet, mildly disoriented.

Liv exclaimed and whipped the syringe at Gwen, missing her neck by a fraction of an inch as she dodged out of the way. Gwen grabbed the claw and yanked it forward, sending Liv hurtling into the workbench and chair, scattering instruments everywhere.

Gwen let go and ran to the exit, but Liv blocked her, moving more quickly than she had anticipated. Her cybernetically-enhanced foe lashed out with a claw, striking Gwen across the face. She retaliated by webbing the pincer shut and kicking Liv in the chest, sending her flying backwards into the door.

Liv recovered and grabbed the workbench, tossing it at Gwen. She ducked under it, and it smashed to pieces against the surprisingly sturdy wall. Gwen shot a webline at the door handle and attempted to pull it open, but the handle snapped off.

Liv slashed and stabbed through thin air, playing a game of Wac-A-Mole with Gwen. The mole was winning. Gwen ducked and dodged, expertly avoiding the swinging tentacles.

Liv was protecting the door. There was no way for Gwen to get past her, so it looked like she'd have to take her out.

"Could you please cooperate?" asked Liv. "I need these data for research purposes!"

"Yeah, sorry, you're getting your mad science in my compelling need to get back home. That's a no from me."

One of Liv's tubular arms managed to grasp Gwen by the left wrist, holding tight. Gwen struggled to free herself, but the inflatable claw was a good deal stronger than it looked. She eventually resorted to using her right hand to pry off the pincers one by one, but another arm grabbed her by the neck, choking her, as a third grabbed her right wrist and yanked her arms apart.

She needed to disable that harness.

"Please, don't make me do this the hard way! I can't get much useful data from a dead body!"

Gwen gasped out, "I'm… already… dead!"

She attempted to gain ground against the push of the claws but barely got two feet before being forced back again. Her shoulders screamed from the strain of keeping her arms attached to her body.

Liv chuckled maliciously. "You're not dead quite yet, but you might be sooner than you think. There's at least one other spider-person out there, so you aren't all that important to me. And I for one would love to squash a spider."

Gwen somehow found the strength to flex her left arm so that her hand was pointing at Liv. She opened fire with her webshooter, covering Liv's face with webbing so that she couldn't see. Liv yelled in surprise and started wiping the stuff away, but Gwen surged forward and pinned her human arms to the wall.

The claws, unsure of what to do, loosened up. Gwen yanked her arms free from their grasp. She ran forward and dented Liv's harness with a swift kick to the gut. Liv doubled over, gasping for breath. The arms likewise deflated and retracted into her harness.

Gwen pried off the harness, wires crackling and snapping apart, and grabbed Liv in a chokehold. "Tell me more about the collider."

Liv shook her head, remaining silent.

Gwen glared at her. "Answer me! Answer me, or, or I'll kill you!"

"You wouldn't."

Gwen blinked, then reaffirmed her savage look. "I've killed before…"

Memories that she would have preferred to stay repressed bubbled to the surface. She quickly shoved them back down.

"...and I can do it again."

She squeezed harder, and Liv gagged, her face losing all its colour.

"Can't… tell… if… can't… breathe…"

Gwen relaxed her grip, still keeping her hands on Liv's neck. "Then tell me."

Liv gasped for air. "We're testing it tomorrow, on the bottom floor. If I were you, I wouldn't intervene. Who knows what you'd do to the timestream? And know that if I see you again, you're gonna die."

Gwen sighed, then released Liv and webbed her securely to the wall. She grabbed her mask and backpack, kicked down the door, and left the room.

She wasn't going home for a while yet, but at least she had some inkling of what to do next. She could try to find the other spider-person, or she could find the dimension collider. Or both. She had a week.


	16. Day 5 - TAIL ATTACK

Gwen managed to navigate through Alchemax and leave through the front door without getting lost too frequently. The building was pretty much silent, although she did beat up two or three night guards. By the time she was in the trees, heading east towards Visions Academy, she was dead tired.

Liv was right. Being in this dimension was draining her energy.

Then again, Gwen thought as she checked her phone, it was past eleven. But it didn't make much sense for her to be tired, especially after that five-hour nap in Liv's lair.

Speaking of Liv… Gwen had threatened to kill her.

Why had she done that?

Why would she mention what had happened two years ago?

What did she have to prove?

Old memories surged through Gwen's head. She was powerless to stop them.

* * *

Gwen stood up, the pain in her shredded right leg agonising. She exhaled. She needed to stop Peter. She had no choice.

She leaped at him, intending to choke him unconscious this time. She misjudged the distance to him and landed too far back. Her hands stuck to his shoulder blades. She managed to right herself so that she was standing on his back, but she couldn't unstick her hands.

She wasn't calm. She didn't think she could calm herself down in time. So Gwen yanked her hands off of Peter's back, tearing away the scales and flesh and leaving gaping hand-sized holes where they had been. Blood leaked out of the wounds.

Peter let out another earsplitting screech, cast off the destabilised Gwen, and fled down the road on all fours.

Gwen peeled the chunks of raw lizard from her hands and noticed that the scales had pierced her gloves and dug into her skin. She tried to flex her fingers and winced.

One cop yelled, "Aim for the injured spots!"

The officers opened fire again. A couple of bullets managed to penetrate the exposed flesh and muscle on Peter's back, and he screeched again, stumbling as he ran.

Gwen stood up again, putting weight back onto her torn-up leg, and almost fell over. One of the policemen called to her, "SWAT is on their way. No need to keep chasing it!"

Gwen called back, "This is my fault. I started it, so I gotta stop him."

She shot a webline and launched herself into the air before anybody could say anything more to her. Nobody was going to stop her from fixing her mistakes.

Upon hearing the clatter of talons on asphalt, Gwen changed direction, following the noise. She soon spotted him in an alley, tearing at the face of a brick wall that made up the side of a pet shop, not paying attention to his surroundings.

Gwen angled herself towards Peter and dropped like a stone, smashing her uninjured foot into the back of his head. The force jerked his head forward, and she slammed into the wall, adhering to it. Peter roared in fury and grabbed Gwen by the torso, tearing her off of the wall and throwing her to the pavement. A shower of brick and mortar fragments rained down on top of her.

That weird cracking noise was her nose, wasn't it? Or was it something else?

Gwen rolled over, hoping to shoot a webline at him and yank him off his feet again, but Peter slashed his giant talons across her face before she could react. She hollered. Blood ran down into her eyes, turning her vision red. Despite knowing that Peter had returned to clawing at the wall of the pet shop and was making an enormous ruckus, Gwen couldn't hear anything. Her vision changed from red to grey, growing blacker by the second.

Time slowed down, and Gwen retreated into her mind.

TAIL ATTACK

It was the voice again, the one that had mentioned the green monster so long ago. But it wasn't her.

What was it?

TAIL ATTACK

Should she listen to it?

What did she have to lose? She was about to die anyway.

TAIL ATTACK

Gwen turned her head to the side and almost immediately felt the reverberations from a giant bludgeon crushing the pavement a hair's-breadth from where she had just been.

How did it know?

Did that really matter?

What was going on out there, out in the cruel world outside her mind, anyway?

Gwen remembered.

It all became clearer.

Peter. He was trapped in the lizard. She needed to save him.

Gwen forced her eyes open. The lizard had torn through the wall and was gnawing on the remains of a bulldog.

It would be so much easier if she just stayed here and closed her eyes again and let herself fade away. Her pain would be over.

But Peter's pain wouldn't.

She had to fight him, to fight for him.

She had to get up for his sake.

Gwen placed her hands on the rubble-strewn ground. The fragments of brick gouged into the cuts on her hands, and she gasped. But she kept getting up.

Gwen raised herself to a sitting position and was overcome with a bout of lightheadedness that nearly made her keel over. But she kept getting up.

Gwen set her feet beneath her, and the agony in her right leg brought tears to her eyes. But she kept getting up.

Gwen pulled herself upright and yelled, "Hey, big, green, and ugly!"

Peter whipped his head around and hissed, spraying droplets of dog blood over her.

"Wanna piece of me?"

Peter tossed the dog's body aside and charged at Gwen, who entered a fighting stance. At the last second, she leaped out of the way, tucking and rolling along the debris-covered asphalt. She shot a webline at the top of another building and swung towards Peter, her feet connecting with his neck. He fell to the ground with a thud.

The lizard stood back up, his eyes menacing. He grabbed a handful of crumbled bricks from the ground and threw them at Gwen, who had only just turned around. Guided by the voice in her head and the feeling in her skull, she dodged all the debris and grabbed one intact brick. She then pushed off of the wall and smashed the brick into Peter's right shoulder, dislocating it.

Peter screamed, but it sounded less like a lizard and more like Peter himself. Hearing the outcry made Gwen all the more determined to beat the Peter out of this monstrosity.

So that's what she did.

Gwen leaped over Peter's writhing tail and drove the brick into his back, striking one of the gaping fleshless holes. Peter whipped around and clawed at her head with his left arm. His massive hand passed through empty air as Gwen ducked beneath it. She smacked the brick into his left knee, causing Peter to keel over and yell again (was it her imagination or was he less green than he had been?). She drove her foot into his snout, knocking him backwards.

As he flew through the air, blood spraying from his mouth, Peter started to transform back into his original state. He smacked into the ground with a sickening thud.

Gwen ran over to him and knelt by his side, tearing off her mask. "Peter! Peter, are you okay?"

"G-Guh-Gwen?" Peter mumbled, tilting his head to the side. His eyes flickered open, then shut again.. His face looked even sickly and hollow than normal in the shadows cast by the streetlamp. "Wh… wha' happened?"

Gwen gently began to lift Peter from the pavement. "C'mon, buddy, stay with me. We're gonna get you help."

Peter moaned as his head brushed against the asphalt. "No… no… hurts. Everything… hurts..." Gwen noticed a pool of blood where his head had been, and she quickly set him back down.

"I'll get the medics," Gwen said, rising to her feet, the aches in her body feeling all the more painful.

"Too… late," he said, his voice little more than a pleading whisper. "Don't go."

Tears brimmed in Gwen's eyes. "Sure, buddy. I… Whatever I did to you… I'm sorry."

"Not… your fault. You… I…" Peter's head listed a bit more to the side. "Wanted… to be… cool… like you."

His eyes glossed over.

Gwen stared at him in horror for a moment. The tears started to flow.

"No," she finally said. "No, no, no. No! No no no no no! Peter, no! Peter, speak to me! Come on! Come on, buddy! Don't die on me! You-" Gwen started to sob, choking out her frenzied words.

"You can't die…"

Gwen heard sirens, sirens that sounded faint to her distant mind but were really much closer. She had to leave.

Gwen staggered to her feet, steadying herself against the ruined pet shop wall, and pulled the tatters of her mask back on. She shot out a webline and took off, heading home.

* * *

Once she had returned to her dorm room, Gwen rolled up her pant leg and studied an old set of scars. They had cut deep into her. They wouldn't go away. Neither would her memories.

She wished they would.

It wasn't easy to forget. It was even harder to forgive herself.


	17. Day 6 - HAIR-RELATED CRISIS

**I RETURN FROM STORY HIATUS AT LONG LAST! Thank you for patiently waiting for my newest installment! I hope it was worth the wait!**

**Just as a reminder, I've switched to updating solely on Thursdays.**

* * *

Gwen woke up to the blare of her alarm, blurred lines of text sitting millimeters from her face, and a sore neck. She had fallen asleep while sitting on the floor finishing her homework. She pushed her physics worksheets off of her face and fumbled for her phone.

It was time for another day of school.

Of all the places at which Gwen could have stayed during her duration on this parallel universe, free from all other responsibilities, it had to be a school. At least it was Friday.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

As Gwen moved to put her papers in her folder, she fell face-first onto the floor, her face landing on the physics papers. She felt something pop inside her nose. When she finally regained the ability to stand, she found that there was a trace of blood on one of the pieces of paper. She swore.

Today was not going to be a good day. She could just tell.

Physics proved relatively uneventful. Gwen's nose stopped bleeding shortly before class began. She explained the bloodstain to Mrs. Quinn, who accepted the paper with a shrug.

Miles seemed on edge all throughout class. He kept fidgeting with the bottom of his pants and jumping at the slightest noises. Plus, he didn't look like he had slept well.

Besides his twitchiness, something seemed odd about him. Gwen couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

The next few classes passed uneventfully, except for Gwen's periodic atomic disjunctions, of course. She turned in all of her back work except for her history papers, which she had accidentally left in her dorm room in her haste. She told Mr. Adams that she would get them to him by the end of the day.

During lunch, instead of heading directly to the cafeteria, Gwen took a different route, planning to swing by her room to pick up the missing papers. She was in the lobby when she noticed an itch at the base of her skull.

LIKE YOU

Gwen felt somebody bump into her. She turned around and saw Miles.

"Oh!" she said. "Pardon!"

Wait a second.

He had spider-powers, too? That was the reason for his antsiness? How had she not noticed it before? Was it a recent development?

Miles didn't answer. He stood frozen in place. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

Gwen cocked her head to the side. "Are you all right? You look, uh, hot."

Miles replied, "I, uh, it's puberty! Except…" His voice started dropping deeper with every word he said. "Except I'm done with that. I'm a man now."

If Gwen wasn't as adept at bottling up her emotions, she would have laughed at his senseless display of machoness.

"Oh, and I'm Miles."

Gwen brightened up. "I'm Gwe-"

She paused in the middle of her name when she suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be called Wanda.

"...eeeeanda."

Miles looked at her in confusion. "Wait, your name is Gwanda?"

Gwen grinned hokily. "Yeah! I-It's African."

She quickly looked down at herself, then at Miles' much darker complexion.

"South African! Uh, no accent, though, 'cause I was raised here, in the States!"

Cover stories were not her forte.

Miles furrowed his brow, then nodded. "Uh, okay."

Had he bought into the story? Gwen couldn't tell.

That was probably the second-worst cover story she had ever made up. Nothing would ever rival the "It's ketchup" moment, although this new "Gwanda" moment came pretty close. There was no way Miles would buy it, unless he was really, really gullible. (For the record, Gwen's dad was not.)

Miles stared at Gwen for what was only a couple of seconds but felt longer, uncomfortably longer.

Had he seen through her flimsy disguise?

Did he realise that she had powers, too?

Gwen started to babble, "Uh, no, not really. My name's Wanda, actually, no G…"

It didn't look like Miles was listening. He wore a thousand-yard stare.

HAIR-RELATED CRISIS

Oh, this couldn't possibly end well.

Miles put his hand on her shoulder. She recoiled slightly.

"Hey."

Gwen blinked and nodded, starting to back away. She became all the more aware of the places that she had to be. "I, uh… okay? I'll see you around."

"See ya." Miles took his hand off of her shoulder, but it passed through her hair, sticking to it.

This was definitely not going to end well.

Miles stared at his hand in shock, then tried to pull it out of Gwen's hair. Of course, it didn't work, and it hurt.

"Hey!" Gwen exclaimed.

He had no idea about his powers, did he? This was not good at all.

Miles gaped. He tried pulling again, nearly yanking Gwen's hair straight out of her head. It was not a fun experience.

"Ow ow ow ow!"

If he kept pulling, provided that he also had super-strength, Gwen was not in for a good time. She grabbed his wrist and pulled it back towards her in an attempt to get him to stop.

"Calm down, okay?"

"Hey, let go of me!" Miles tried to pull his hand back.

"No, hold on, just chill out!"

Gwen had a feeling that they were working at cross purposes.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

The two of them started to struggle against each other, Miles trying to get his hand unstuck, Gwen trying to protect herself from getting scalped or having her neck snapped. A crowd of students started to gather. It looked like she couldn't exposition her way out of this mess.

"It's just puberty!" exclaimed Miles.

Gwen gaped. "I don't think you know what puberty is!"

He really didn't know about his powers. That wasn't going to help her. But she still had to get him unstuck, somehow.

"Just try to relax, okay?"

Miles said simultaneously, "I have a plan. I'm gonna pull really hard, and..."

This kid would be the death of her. Literally.

"That's a terrible plan!"

"Count of three. One…"

"No no no no no!"

"Two…"

Right now, Miles was a threat. She had to neutralise the threat. So Gwen grabbed the straps of his backpack and, ducking beneath him, flipped him over her head.

A couple of teachers rushed over and jabbered to the two kids, berated them for fighting on school grounds, asked them what was the matter. Miles didn't respond. Gwen feared that she might have knocked him unconscious by mistake. Or maybe he didn't feel like talking. She couldn't blame him if that was the case.

Gwen told the teachers, "He got his hand stuck in my hair and we couldn't get it out."

They escorted the two students to the nurse's office, where the nurse cut off the part of Gwen's hair that was stuck to Miles' hand. Gwen surveyed the damage with a hand mirror.

Today was not a good day.

Miles put on a quirky smile, hoping to alleviate the tension between them. "Uh, nice to meet you?"

Gwen stared straight ahead, not the slightest bit amused. "Sure. Total pleasure."

What was she supposed to do about her friggin' hair?

Plus, that ordeal had sapped a lot of her lunch period free time. Gwen needed to get to her dorm and get her homework.

Miles, his head hung low, stood up and walked out of the office. He turned around and looked back at her. "I, uh, see you around?"

She rolled her eyes. No puppy-dog gaze would penetrate her stoic exterior.

The nurse walked back over, carrying a pair of scissors. "Wanda, is it?"

Gwen looked over at her and nodded.

"Would you like me to fix your hair? Or try, at least?"

Gwen nodded again. "Can you?"

"Uh, yeah, my son's ex had her hair partly shaved on one side, and I could try to give you that haircut, if you want. Otherwise, you could get a hat-"

Gwen didn't have a hat. "Can you show me what it'd look like?"

The nurse nodded and pulled out her phone. She showed Gwen a picture of a young man standing next to a girl with an undercut.

Gwen shrugged. "That's fine by me. I mean, my hair's ruined anyway. How much worse could you make it?"

The nurse chuckled. "Right, then. Oh, here, put this towel around your neck."

About ten minutes later, Gwen walked out of the nurse's office, her feelings of irritation having subsided. However, there were some hair scraps caught under her clothes, which caused her physical irritation.

She was hungry, but her lunch break was halfway over by now. With luck, she would be able to get food and eat super-

Oh yeah, she had to fetch her history papers from her room. That was important.

PIGEON SWARM

As Gwen walked toward her dorm room, an oddly-shaped shadow appeared on the floor. There was a loud thump. She looked upward and saw Miles, who wasn't wearing a shirt and appeared to be stuck to a bunch of pigeons, lying on the skylight.

Gwen rubbed her eyes, then looked back up in time to see him jolt away.

She hoped nothing bad had happened to him. At the same time, she couldn't help but feel as if he deserved it. Karma was on her side, at least for the time being.

Gwen proceeded onward to her room after gazing around and making certain that nobody else had noticed Miles' sudden appearance. Both surprisingly and fortunately, nobody had.


	18. Day 6 - SIDE CAR

**Hello, I would like to apologise profusely for not having updated this story in three weeks. I'm still alive, so fear not! And be on the lookout for other new stories from me in the near future! But anyway, if you've been patiently awaiting an update, I'm sorry to have left you hanging, and I hope this new chapter is worth it! For all of you, thanks for checking out Stranded, I hope you enjoy it, and I promise to try and do better with updates in the future.**

* * *

The school day had finally ended. The weekend had arrived, free for Gwen to exploit to the best of her ability.

She wanted nothing more than to sleep for as long as she could. At the same time, she wanted to relax and swing around the city for a while.

Anyway, there were things that she wanted to check out. Namely, she had a spider-person or two to locate.

Gwen found web-swinging oddly relaxing. There was a rhythm to her motions, although she did love to mix things up. Rhythms, like drumming on her desk or tapping her foot or listening to music, relaxed her. It only made sense that she would feel that way about web-swinging as well.

She watched the city run its course as she passed overhead. Two men got into an argument over a scraped bumper. A woman watered her window box. A group of teens played pick-up basketball around a makeshift hoop ziptied to a lamppost. Sirens blared somewhere far off in the distance. A dog barked. A car alarm went off.

It was a chaotic form of order. There was an odd sort of underlying rhythm. Brooklyn had a heartbeat. The city had a drummer trapped beneath its streets, pounding out a pattern.

None of the activity affected Gwen in any way; it seemed to pass right through her, like the prison door during her atomic disjunction. She wondered if this was how it felt to be a ghost, detached but still present, unnoticed but noticing, trapped behind a cosmic one-way mirror.

DRONING DRONE

Except that she wasn't really detached.

Gwen felt a drone smack into the small of her back. It threw her body and mind out of her rhythm. After catching herself, she alighted onto a water tower and sat down, watching the purple-tinted clouds sail overhead.

It was peaceful outside. It always was, despite the hustle and bustle below. She seemed to rise above it all, leaving humanity and her fears and woes behind and simply being present.

Gwen wondered why she felt so philosophical all of a sudden.

It was time to get back to business. After all, she was going to die soon. She didn't have time for fooling around.

Would she be missed? It wasn't like she had anyone particularly close to her. Besides her family, the only person she could think of who would fit the criterion was Peter. They'd been best friends, had had so much fun together. The insult competitions, the riddle games at which she sucked but he did fairly well, chatting and bothering each other on the bus ride home, visiting each other's houses and meeting his aunt and uncle, sneaking out to the gas station late at night to buy little packs of powdered donuts, trying to figure out how her superpowers worked…

Then he'd died.

Gwen shook her head, as if she could send the thoughts tumbling out of her mind. Death made her morbidly contemplative, and such thoughts only weighed her down. They only held her back. They didn't matter. She needed to bottle up her emotions.

But for some strange reason, Gwen couldn't get herself to completely stop caring.

Was that a bad thing?

Ignoring her conscience, she shielded her eyes and scanned her surroundings. A figure leaped across the skyline. It wasn't so much a splash of colour as it was an absence of one.

Perhaps it was the other spider-person that L- that Dr. Octavius had mentioned?

She leaped off of the water tower and headed towards the figure, well aware that she might be approaching a trap.

Upon reaching the point where she had last spotted the person, Gwen scanned the area and found a strand of webbing. She lifted it and rolled it between her fingers. It felt odd, more like actual spider-silk than the synthetic product that she used. Another visual search yielded no signs of life other than a stray cat padding down a narrow alleyway.

She had lost her mark. She might as well head to Alchemax now and see what she could find.

SIDE CAR

Gwen took off again, heading to one landmark among many. Around her, the streetlights flickered on, casting a yellowish glare over everything and everyone, including the still-smoking car wreck just to the side of the nearby exit ramp.

Wait a second. Smoke? That was not a good sign. She changed her bearing and headed over to it.

Gwen landed on the pavement not far from the car. Muffled whimpering emanated from inside. She ran over to the wreck and peered through the broken dashboard. Trapped inside the car was a young man with shattered glasses, tangled in his seat belt and bleeding profusely from the forehead.

Gwen flipped the car right-side up and tore off the smashed-in driver's side door. The man looked up and yelped in surprise. He started to fumble with the seat belt buckle. Gwen tore out the belt from its attachment point and lifted the man out of the wreck.

"Can you walk?"

The man nodded. "Think so. It's just my arms and face that hurt."

Gwen gently set him down. The young man stumbled briefly and put his hand on her shoulder to steady himself, but he remained upright.

"Th-thank you so much!" he started to babble, hugging Gwen and bloodying part of her suit.

"Don't mention it. It's a miracle you weren't hurt worse."

The man's face suddenly fell. "Oh no, I'm gonna be late for my date. Sonuva… and I was gonna propose to her! Augh!"

Gwen nodded and turned away. "Well, I hope your proposal goes well nevertheless. I'm sure she'll be happy to know that you're still alive and in great condition. Give her a call from the hospital. Have a good night."

She took off and swung towards the Alchemax building.

It felt good to be a hero again. It was always nice to get back into the swing of things, no pun intended.

Gwen did know that this New York already had its own spider-themed vigilante, but she figured she would help where she could for the time being. She had her own goals and deadlines, but doing something good was never a bad thing.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen lost her grip on her webline and plummeted towards the ground some thirty yards below. She managed to regain control of her body, but not before smashing into the roof of a parked Tesla, triggering its burglar alarm.

She couldn't tell if her headache was caused by the collision or by the disjunction, but it didn't really matter. Her everything else ached, too.

She couldn't wait to get out of this God-forsaken dimension. That is, if she ever would.

Gwen pulled herself up from the wreckage, dusting fragments of the roof off of herself. The burglar alarm did not help her headache at all.

Today was really not her day, was it.

Gwen managed to muster enough force of will to stand up and fire a webline at an overhanging street sign. It was funny the way that irony worked. She had just saved a man from a rollover accident, and now she had severely damaged somebody else's car. Maybe she should give up her driver's license so that she wouldn't wreck any more automobiles.

She chuckled at her own sarcastic comment. Her license had taken her too long to get to be given away so wantonly.

Gwen reached Alchemax as the sun dipped below the horizon. She clung to the face of the building and gazed around, trying to locate an entry point.

Something seemed off. Gwen stayed very still and tried to determine what it was. Her spider-sense remained silent, so she assumed her suspicions were either incorrect or not immediately life-threatening.

The skyscraper was vibrating.

She wondered if it was a side-effect of some of the odd technologies that were housed…

Wait, was the dimensional transporter thingamajig causing the vibrations?

She had to get inside.


	19. Day 6 - LARGE-SCALE ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen dashed up the side of Alchemax. The vibrations lessened as she traveled. They most likely originated from the basement, considering that was where Dr. Octavius claimed the collider was located, but there had to be a less heavily-guarded entry point on the roof somewhere.

She flipped herself onto the roof and found a set of doors leading into a glass-walled cafeteria. Upon closer examination, one of them was damaged. She flung open the door and stepped into near silence. The floor continued to vibrate beneath her feet.

She had to go down.

Gwen found an abandoned lab coat lying on a table. Embroidered on the lapel was the name "Osborn". She cloaked herself in it. If all else failed, she could use it as a disguise.

Something bumped against her leg as she ran noiselessly through the barren halls. There was something in the left pocket. Gwen slowed down and removed a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses. It would complete her stereotypical nerd look. She replaced them and pressed onward.

If the floor plan of this floor was the same as the others (except for the cafeteria, of course), there should be a stairwell not too far down this hall. She soon spotted the doors and burst through them. They clanged, and the din echoed through the silent building.

Gwen jumped into the empty space between the flights, plummeting to a floor that she couldn't see. Soon, it became visible, and she shot a webline straight up to catch herself before she broke her legs on the solid concrete ground. Her "borrowed" lab coat billowed out behind her as she landed lightly on the floor. The vibrating increased into an audible hum, filling her body with a weird tingling sense.

GREEN MONSTER

What could her spider-sense be referring t- ah, Spider-Pete was likely down here already, trying to shut off the machine. Or maybe there was someone or something else. Or both. Who knew?

Gwen jogged down the hallway. Yes, she could distinctly hear other people now. It sounded like a fight was taking place, and… was that a roar? What was going on? She picked up the pace, following the noise.

A bright light switched on not too far down the hallway. Its source was her new destination.

Gwen saw a metal door set into the wall on her right. It had a small window set in it at eye level. Blinding light streamed out and Gwen squinted her eyes. The noises came from the other side. She distinctly heard garbled conversation.

Of course, the door was locked tightly. But she hadn't had an atomic disjunction in quite som-

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Finally, finally, Gwen spazzed out at a convenient moment, phasing through the door and into some sort of control room that looked like Houston's NASD facility. It was lined with desks covered with computers. At the front was an incredibly long console studded with screens and status LED displays and technology that she couldn't even begin to name. What fascinated her more was the giant cylindrical chamber on the other side of the console, separated from it by an enormous set of glass panes. It was full of scaffolding. And a giant green beast. And Spider-Pete.

Gwen's eyes widened.

GREEN MONSTER

The monster in question was vaguely humanoid. Its dark, beady eyes glittered as it swung its massive head around, tracking Spider-Pete as he danced around the chamber. The purple tasselled hat on its cranium ruined the effect somewhat, but the rest of its brutish form – complete with giant batlike wings – more than made up for it.

The beast reminded Gwen vaguely of her own Peter. She shuddered. Her fingers unconsciously traced the old scar on her leg.

SUSPICIOUS PERSONS

Gwen leaped up and clung to the ceiling upon hearing a key clack in the lock of the door through which she had phased. In walked Dr. Octavius, two other lab-coat-wearing scientists, and the largest man that she had ever seen.

LINCH KING

The man had to weigh about half a ton. He was dressed in a black suit that was composed of enough fabric to make a sail for a pirate ship. He was bald, and his neck was angled in such a way that his head looked like it was set in the middle of his chest. (Perhaps it was.) Regardless, the man moved with an air of authority, despite his bulk.

Should Gwen be here?

INCONCLUSIVE

The heavyset man (to put it mildly) trod over to the console in the front of the room, where Dr. Octavius monitored the various screens as they sprung to life.

"Do you think it will work?"

Dr. Octavius grinned. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm sure of it, Fisk."

Fisk laid his meaty hands on the console. "I see Norman is taking care of the spider."

"Not particularly well, I don't think."

The goblin was struck by a powerful punch from Spider-Pete, then flew across the room and smashed into the viewscreen. Gwen flinched unconsciously.

Spider-Pete disappeared, passing out of her field of view as he swung to the left. It looked like he had a handle on things.

"I have an idea," said Fisk. "Turn on the collider."

Dr. Octavius' eyes widened in shock. "Turn it on? Now? But, but there are foreign contaminants in the chamber. Who knows what that would do to it?"

Fisk's eyes narrowed. "Who knows if any of this will work? Anyway, we want the spider dead. Norman is just collateral damage. We can make another."

Gwen realised that the horrific-looking abomination, Norman, probably used to be an innocent man. These people were true villains.

Dr. Octavius sighed. "All right." She turned around. "Nye, prepare the rotaries. Val, check our coordinates."

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Gwen knew that she had a choice to make. If the collider was powered on, it might end up killing Spider-Pete and this poor goblin creature and maybe tearing a hole in the space-time continuum, as these things had a tendency to do. However, if she interrupted the process, it could also fragment the time stream, and that would be equally as bad, like Li- like Dr. Octavius had said.

She shouldn't risk it. She should just leave the time stream be. Besides, Spider-Pete was awfully competent, definitely more so than she was. He could handle it.

Gwen clung to the ceiling and watched as the three scientists powered on the collider. She watched as the humming from the system grew in intensity. She watched as the jet-engine-like structures started to rotate, faster and faster. She watched as Spider-Pete flung himself off of the scaffolding, using the momentum of the rotators to propel himself to the ceiling-floor. She watched as he pried off a panel of the wall, wielding what looked like a flash drive.

Gwen had seen enough. She dropped to the floor right next to the door and eased it open, slipping through before anyone had the chance to see her.

GUARD ON WATCH

She didn't feel like beating the crud out of any more watchmen. She was tired.

Gwen pulled the lab coat more tightly around herself and took off her mask. After a moment's hesitation, she donned the abandoned glasses. Hopefully, she looked enough like a scientist to go unnoticed.

The disguise worked. She passed through several halls and by a few security guards without attracting any double takes. Perhaps she ought to keep the coat, just in case she needed to reinfiltrate Alchemax. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to do so again. She had developed a distaste for the building and its denizens.

Gwen exited through the front doors and walked calmly away.

LARGE-SCALE ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

A loud explosion rocked the ground around her and sent her flying forwards.

She felt disjointed, trapped between two instants in time. She jolted backwards, and for a fleeting instant saw another her pass through the air. Her spider-sense thrummed, yelling multiple somethings that she couldn't hear.

Gwen fell back to the ground and opened her eyes in time to see a brief wave of… was the landscape glitching out? It looked like what happened to her during her atomic disjunctions. The trees and sky briefly flickered through multiple colours and patterns before settling back to normal.

Why would the landscape suffer an atomic disjunction? Had the collider malfunctioned?

Of course it had. Why else would she be here? Doctor Octavius was right.

Gwen felt conflicted. Part of her wanted to rush back inside and see if anyone needed rescuing. The other part desperately required some well-earned shut-eye.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen didn't know it was possible to trip while standing up. She learned something new that day. And now her nose was bleeding again. She rolled up her mask partway so it wouldn't get stained. Blood was a pain to wash out of a white costume.

Ultimately, she gave in to her compelling desire for sleep. Spider-Pete could probably handle the situation. Probably.

Gwen loosed a webline from her glove and soared into the night.


	20. Day 7 - REPTILIAN BUG

**Hello! I would like to apologise for the lack of recent updates. I have bad news and good news. The good news is, at over 50,000 words and six months of (non-continuous) work, the draft of the entire story is finally complete! All I have left to do is edit the last several chapters, send them to my beta (who has been an absolute pleasure to work with!), and post them! The bad news is, I don't know if I'll be able to stick to a consistent schedule for posting. So, in the interest of finally putting the rest of this story out there, I'm gonna post each chapter as it's finalised. It may not be consistent, but I don't feel like waiting until the next Thursday rolls around to get chapters out there. I mean, as of this one, I still have 13 more chapters left to publish. That's a lot.**

**So, please, stay posted for more! Thanks again to everybody who has been reading, especially so to those kind few who have commented! And no thanks to the fine folk on Tumblr, because I've learned that it's a terrible platform on which to post fanfiction! (Sorry, guys, but it's true!)**

**Anyway, long rant aside, enjoy!**

* * *

Gwen blinked as a ray of sunlight fell onto her face.

It was the weekend. Thank goodness. She could sleep in. Plus, she didn't have any homework assignments hanging over her head.

She fell back asleep.

Gwen woke up some time later to a buzzing in her skull. Her spider-sense wanted to tell her something.

REPTILIAN BUG

Words floated into Gwen's room, borne by the breeze. She dragged herself out of bed and approached the half-open window to hear better.

"...heard the news, right?"

"Yeah, man, I can't believe it. I can't effing believe it."

"You sure the media's not pulling our legs?"

"I'm sure... his body was found right outside the _Daily Bugle_."

"Wow. Just... wow. My God. Spiderman's dead."

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

Gwen stumbled away from the window, overcome by dizziness.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

She fell over, striking the carpet, spasming insistently, head throbbing. When the disjunction passed, she attempted to stand and was struck by a powerful wave of nausea. She somehow managed to refrain from vomiting.

Gwen rubbed her head, which still ached.

She had made the wrong choice. She had let Peter die again. She had failed again. She had broken her promise.

Should she have expected more from herself?

Gwen curled up into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the world.

* * *

Gwen limped into school the Monday after Peter… after the incident. She felt hollow inside, like her heart had been torn from her chest.

A leaden knell sounded in the space left behind, the solemn ringing of a funeral bell.

Gone.

Gone.

Peter was dead.

And it was all her fault.

The bell wouldn't shut up. It tolled all through her classes, through lunch, through her free period. She could barely focus because of its presence. She wanted to rip out her brain and hurl it through the window. Why couldn't she stop thinking about it? Why couldn't everything just go back to normal?

A real bell sounded through the halls, drowning out the one in her head. School was out. Finally. Gwen had thought the day would never end.

She trudged to her locker and took out her jacket. A couple of girls stood a few feet off, chatting amongst themselves. When they mentioned Peter's name, Gwen couldn't help but tune in on them.

"... was always a weird kid."

"Yeah, he was quiet. And reclusive. And, like, a super-genius. It's the perfect storm, you know? Something just had to be off with that guy."

"I heard it was that weird hero who did him in?"

"Oh, yeah, that's what the cops said, at least. Something about how she started it?"

One of the girls, who was named Olivia, noticed her. "Oh, hey, Gwen?"

Gwen turned. "What's up?"

"You know how you were, like, good friends with Peter?"

Gwen tensed up, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack. "Yeah… so?"

"Do, uh, do you kn-"

The other girl, Amanda, interrupted her. "Don't talk to her about that! She's probably still upset about him."

Olivia's face fell. "Oh. Sorry."

Gwen held up her hands, saying, "No no, it's fine! I'm fine."

She didn't feel fine, but she needed to learn to bottle up her emotions. Now was as good a time as any to start.

Olivia continued, "Uh, do you have any idea why Peter, uh… why he did the thing?"

"No, I don't," Gwen answered truthfully. Well, mostly truthfully.

"All right. Just wondering. Oh, and do you think that weird superhero guy killed him?"

Gwen blinked, then said in a deadly serious voice, "Yes. I do."

She knew it was true.

Olivia smiled. "All right, thanks. And I- um, I'm sorry about your loss."

Gwen shrugged and started to walk towards the exit. She wanted nothing more than to go home.

"Oh, hold up," said Olivia. Amanda sighed.

Gwen turned around, one eyebrow raised.

"If you wanna talk with somebody about this stuff, if you're ever feeling super sad and stuff, I dunno, not necessarily about… this, but in general... " Olivia hesitated, unsure of where her train of thought was headed. "Uh… I dunno, but talk to somebody, you hear?"

Amanda nodded. "She's right."

Gwen nodded curtly, then walked away.

She didn't want to talk to anybody. The last thing she needed right now was for somebody to take pity on her.

She got on the bus, sat in an empty seat, and lost herself in thought.

What could she do about herself?

Why did she call herself a superheroine? She was nothing of the sort. Superheroes were kind, altruistic, helpful, good people who saved lives. She was selfish, callous, useless, a wannabe punk with a kill count. Above all, she was just a little kid, like Peter had said.

Who was she kidding? Gwen wasn't a hero. She was a villain.

But… but what if there was something that she could do about that?

Could she be better?

Gwen shook her head slowly. Who was she kidding? She may have had super strength, yet she had never felt weaker in her life.

Peter had wanted to make himself into a hero. She should do the same.

But look at what he had done in the process.

There was a difference between Peter and Gwen. Peter was doing it for himself. Gwen could do it for Peter.

What better way was there to honour his memory than to be what he couldn't be, to better herself for his sake?

Gwen steeled her resolve. She would be better. She would become a hero, a real hero, not some shoddy imitation.

How could she do that? How could she keep people from dying, like Peter had?

Why had he died, anyway? What had led him to drink the serum?

It was because she had ignored him, wasn't it. She hadn't cared about him.

Then she had to care.

She wouldn't sit back as people spiraled out of reach, whether they were in mortal danger or in danger from their own minds. She would never take a seat and idly watch somebody else's suffering. Never again.

Gwen wouldn't repeat her past mistakes.

* * *

But she had. She had broken her promise and had not reached out in someone else's time of need, and it had cost her another great man. This Peter had been a second chance. She'd messed up that one, too.

Just because she was in a different dimension didn't mean that Gwen was exempt from being a hero. She owed that much to Peter, to Spider-Pete, to both of them.

She still felt sick, but crime didn't care. The superhero's life was a merciless one.

It was time to go on patrol.


	21. Day 7 - GUARD ON WATCH

Spider-Pete's funeral was at 2 in the afternoon at the old church, Gwen learned from listening in on some students in the cafeteria at lunch. She had looked for Miles, but he was not among the people in the cafeteria. She hoped he was okay, especially after seeing his dilemma yesterday.

More than before, she wanted to talk to him. She wanted to figure out how he had acquired his powers, when he had acquired them, if he knew Spider-Pete, so on and so forth.

Wait: was he from a different dimension, too?

It would make sense. He had spider-powers and was also a transfer student, and his presence triggered Gwen's spider-sense.

How could she prove it?

She could investigate his room for clues...

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

...which would invade his privacy. Also, what if he was still in his room?

The principal's office had student files in it. If she could sneak in there, she could find Miles' files and analyse them for any oddities.

Hey, that rhymed.

Here was hoping there wouldn't be an excessive amount of security around the files. She had gotten lucky with the government office.

Gwen finished her waffles and walked to the administrative offices. The door was shut and locked.

Was there a back way in?

She could check her map of Visions Academy. It was fortunate that she had kept it.

Gwen hurried to her room. Nope, there was no entrance other than the one door. However, the security guard's office was across the hall. He must have a spare set of keys for all the doors, right?

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

It was brief this time, a sharp tremor that made her stumble as she left her room. She brushed it off and pressed on. It was already 12:15 pm, and she wanted to attend the funeral.

Luckily, the security guard's office was unlocked, and nobody was inside. Gwen got to work. She rifled through the desk drawers and found a massive ring of keys that all looked alike. None of them were labeled. Upon closer inspection, they were all blanks. She replaced the ring and kept looking.

The desk held nothing else of interest, so she looked through the cabinets. On the inside of the cabinet door was a hook which held a lanyard bearing several colour-coded keys.

If only she knew what each colour meant.

Gwen snatchd the lanyard, shut the cabinet door, and stole to the office doors. The pink key didn't fit. Neither did the grey one or the lavender one. The black key slid into the lock. With a turn and a click, the door swung open to reveal the dark office space. She switched on her phone flashlight and proceeded inward.

Gwen looked around the neatly organised space for filing cabinets or folders of any sort. Stacks of dark green binders stood on a wooden shelf next to the secretary's desk. She approached the shelf. The binders were labeled by grade level and last name. She pulled out the one labeled "10 Lu-Mo" and opened it up.

Just to be safe… should she be here?

PERHAPS

The message wasn't reassuring.

She found Wanda Maximoff's files right off the bat. Her transcript was in there, filled out in both Russian (at least, the script looked Russian) and English. There was no profile picture attached, luckily for her.

At the end of the binder, Gwen saw the files for a Miles Morales. She opened them up and started to read. Miles had transferred to Visions Academy from a public school in Brooklyn. He was fifteen months younger than her and had lived in Brooklyn for at least as long as he had been in school. His father was a police officer and his mother was a nurse. Interesting. The profile picture the school had of him showed a big, mischievous smile that instantly made her think trouble maker. His file, however, didn't mention him causing trouble. Miles didn't seem like the sort, in all honesty.

Maybe he wasn't an impostor, after all. Maybe he was just unlucky enough to be gifted with spider-powers. Maybe the reason they were both at Visions Academy was because she was sent to meet him there, not because he was sent to meet her.

Gwen shut the binder and replaced it, then left the office, locking the door behind her.

GUARD ON WATCH

As she approached the security guard's office, she heard somebody moving around inside and muttering to himself. The guard had returned. Now how was she going to return his keys?

She couldn't just open the door and hand them to him, as that would require admitting that she had stolen them in the first place. She couldn't slide them under the door or leave them somewhere for him to easily find because then he'd wonder why they were misplaced.

It looked like she'd have to wait for the guard to leave and then put them back.

Gwen sat down on the stoop in the entryway and waited for several minutes, watching the dust particles drift by.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen fell sideways, hitting the floor with a solid thunk. She heard the security guard mutter something. The door swung open.

Now was her chance.

She crawled across the ceiling as the security guard looked around the lobby for the source of the loud noise. She slipped through the open door and replaced the keys on their hook.

GUARD ON WATCH

By the time she had shut the cabinet door, the guard had walked back into his office and shut the door. He sat back down at his desk with a sigh and took out his phone.

Gwen clenched her teeth in exasperation. She was trapped.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

An insane but possibly workable plan formed in her head almost immediately. She didn't have time to second-guess herself if she wanted to enact it.

Gwen landed on the floor behind the guard, then jumped up. She managed to time the jump perfectly so that her disjunction hit just before she struck the wall. Her momentum carried her through the ceiling and into the next floor up. Quite literally, as her right foot was now stuck in the floor of her precalc classroom. She should have leapt through the wall instead, but this was no time to worry about the past.

Gwen braced herself and yanked her foot out of the floor, cracking the tile as she did so. A splinter of tile embedded itself into her ankle. She pulled it out, wincing.

She walked back to her room and donned her costume. The funeral would start soon.


	22. Day 7 - JAMMED FINGERS

**Hello! I'm still not sure how updates are going to progress from here. I don't want to barrage you with chapters, so I think I'll stick to the typical Monday-Thursday posting strategy for the time being. That may change. I would like to finish posting before the end of August.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

Gwen perched on a rooftop and looked out over the vast crowd of mourners. Many of them wore cheap replicas of Spider-Pete's costume. They murmured amongst themselves, stealing glances at the podium on the top of the church steps from time to time. A large number of reporters stood near the front, holding video equipment and steno pads.

She checked her phone. It was a few minutes until 2, but nobody was here to officiate yet.

She found herself growing impatient for a number of reasons, not the least of which was because it was cold and snowy (which was unusual for the middle of October). Gwen was eager to learn more about Spider-Pete. What was his family like? Did the city have a favourable opinion of him? Frankly, that question answered itself, judging by the mass of people present.

It was good that so many people were here. Spider-Pete deserved all the fans he had, if he was anything like the Peter she had known.

Two women passed through the red cordoned barrier and climbed to the top of the steps: a young lady with bright red hair, a black dress, and a white hat; and an older lady with grey hair dressed in a sharp black blazer and skirt.

The younger woman approached the podium and cleared her throat. The noise echoed over the loudspeakers.

A hush fell over the crowd.

"Good afternoon," the lady began. Screens projected her face onto numerous buildings surrounding the square.

Gwen furrowed her brow. The lady looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite place her name. The older one was presumably Peter's aunt, or his mother. More likely his aunt. Where was his uncle?

"My name is Mary Jane Parker."

Gwen blinked. This lady was Em Jay? She had MARRIED Peter? Good for him. This version of Em Jay had better be nicer than the one from her universe.

She directed her full attention towards Em Jay. She was genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say.

"And my husband is… was Spiderman."

Em Jay cast her gaze downwards for a moment, then looked back up, scanning the crowd.

"I know you're all scared about what's going to happen next. Believe me, so am I."

A murmur raced through the crowd.

"There's a lot of bad stuff in this city, let alone this world. We all think we're just normal people, that there's nothing we can do about it all just because we're nobody special.

"The thing is, my husband was a normal guy. He liked Swedish Fish and my aunt's pet cat. He stayed up too late and got hyper after drinking espresso. He couldn't stand rush hour traffic or getting bitten by my aunt's pet cat. He ate mac and cheese on the kitchen ceiling."

The mass of people chuckled.

Em Jay cracked a faint smile. "Well, that was slightly less normal."

Another laugh, weakened by somberness, echoed from ten thousand voices. Gwen couldn't stop the small smile that spread onto her face.

"The point is, Peter was just any other person. He always liked to say that it could have been anyone behind the mask. He was just the fellow who happened to get bitten on that one fateful field trip. He didn't ask for his powers - didn't want them, sometimes - but he chose to be Spiderman.

"Spiderman's not a person. It's a way of life, and it's not beyond our reach. We're all capable of doing good and being responsible. We all have talents of our own. Maybe you can paint. Maybe you can build. Maybe you can teach. Maybe you can do something completely wild and original. We all have powers. In our own way, we're all Spiderman. And we're all counting on you.

"For Peter's sake, for the sake of us all, take up the mask. Be Spiderman in your own personal way. It's the least you can do to honour all that he's done for us."

Gwen took off her mask and held it over her heart.

The crowd cheered.

Em Jay deserved the applause. It was a beautiful speech, especially given on such short notice.

LIKE YOU

Gwen glanced around and saw a distant figure perched on a nearby building to her left. Who was it? Was it another dimensional traveller? Was it the one who had arrived before the collider incident?

She pulled her mask back on. Whoever this person was, she ought to talk to him.

With a standing start, Gwen leaped from the building, her legs propelling her across the urban canyon but not quite far enough to land neatly on the other side. She shot a webline from her right glove towards the building. It sputtered as it flew, forming a thin but sturdy line that she used to yank herself to the next roof.

The building on which the mystery spider-person was located wasn't far off. From this distance, Gwen could make out a distinct humanoid outline in the silhouette. His head drooped as though it was too heavy for his neck to support.

Gwen steeled her nerves and prepared herself to meet the mysterious spider-person. At least, she assumed it was a spider-person.

She backed up a few paces, and, with a running start, leaped onto the other skyscraper. She crept around an air conditioning unit and peered over at the figure.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

The spider-person whipped his head around. Gwen flattened herself against the AC vent, waiting for him to turn back. But he didn't. Instead, the spider-person leaped off of the building, some sort of cape flapping in the wind behind him, and vanished without a trace.

Whoops. She must have made too much noise. No matter. She could follow him.

Gwen ran to the edge of the building. Sure enough, the spider-person had left behind a webline and had made it a fair distance through the urban jungle already. The line was smoother than hers was.

She leaped off of the skyscraper, following the mystery web-slinger.

JAMMED FINGERS

Feeling a distinct sense of dread, Gwen pressed the firing button on her left web-shooter.

Nothing happened.

She frantically hammered on it. Had she simply run out of webbing or had too much of it gummed up the mechanisms?

The webshooter sputtered slightly, releasing a hiss of air, a few useless tiny strands flying out. Her right one fared no better.

The ground rushed towards her at a furious rate.

Gwen slammed her webshooter against her leg. If it didn't unjam now, she would hit the pavement. That would not be fun.

It didn't unjam.

She barrelled into the street. The asphalt cracked. A viable line flew out of her glove, soaring in a weak arc, before landing limply on the sidewalk.

A bus braked to a stop to her left. It honked loudly.

Muttering cuss words under her breath, Gwen hauled herself to her feet and walked off.

There was no way she could find the mystery spider at this point.

However, there was something else useful that she could do.

Em Jay's surprisingly deep words echoed in her head. "_For Peter's sake, for the sake of us all, take up the mask."_

It was time to go on patrol.


	23. Day 7 - GHOST SPIDER

Gwen perched on top of a brick apartment building and watched Brooklyn bustle below. It was 5:30 now, and she had already stopped two muggers and a grand theft auto. She was pleased with herself. However, there was no sign of the mystery spider. She couldn't blame him for hiding away if he knew that he had been spotted.

Did the mystery spider have a spider-sense like she did?

Did Miles have one?

How was Miles faring, anyway? Gwen hoped that he had gotten a handle on his powers.

She started to jog along the rooftops, looking out for any signs of trouble. She didn't want to web-swing any more than she had to, considering how her web-shooters had jammed up. With any luck, she would be able to clean them up tonight. The process of scraping out all the gunk coating the insides and making sure she didn't misplace any mechanisms during reassembly was laborious. Fortunately, Gwen didn't have to clean out her web-shooters very often. Maybe she should start doing it more regularly, though, considering her ordeal earlier this afternoon.

There was something odd about the sidewalk to her left. She leaped down, perched atop a flagpole, and surveyed the scene.

Yup, the sidewalk was cracked, just like the pavement had been when Gwen fell just a few hours ago. It wasn't the same street, though, so something or someone else must have taken a tumble.

She hoped it wasn't a person. Gwen had survived her fall because of superhuman durability and a fair amount of luck. A normal person would break against the ground. It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.

Pieces of a damaged neon sign were also strewn across the ground. Most of the characters had broken, but two numbers remained intact: a 4 and a 2.

Something glittered on the sidewalk. It was probably part of the sign, but Gwen felt like investigating anyway.

She landed lightly on the street and bent over, inspecting the pavement. Sure enough, the pieces were metallic, a mix of green and gold and silver. It was probably from the sign, although it was concentrated in a very small area.

Eh, it didn't matter. It was interesting and mysterious, but it didn't matter. Here was hoping nobody was injured. Considering the lack of blood, it seemed that nobody had been.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

A tall, mustachioed man strode out of the store, broom and dustpan in hand. "Hey, you're that ghost spider from the news!"

Gwen froze.

"You here to help or something? Here, take the dustpan."

Too stunned to protest, Gwen obliged. The man started to sweep debris into the pan.

She had made the _news_ here? That was not a good sign. If anybody figured out that she was the jailbreaking fugitive from last week, she was done for, in costume or out of it.

But then again, she wore a mask for a reason. She was just being paranoid. Regardless, she should figure out what the media knew and thought of her.

Should she be here?

IT DEPENDS

Depends on what? What was she not being told?

Gwen tapped the back of the dustpan against the ground, letting the debris slide to the rear so that more could be swept in.

The shop owner spoke: "So, not much of a talker, ah?"

Gwen didn't respond. Silence was probably her best option, even if it wasn't the most courteous one.

"I get that. Secret identity and all. Nice costume, by the way. Very ghostly, and also very spidery."

Ghostly was not the look Gwen was going for, but it didn't matter.

"Oh, and don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you were here, if you want. I can keep a secret, don't you fret. Never told anyone for years what was up with my sister. 'Course, that ended up being kind of a bad thing, since she ended up in the hospital after a fashion, but it's water under the bridge."

They finished sweeping up the area in front of the shop. Gwen gave the man a salute and swung away as he watched in awe.

He seemed like a nice fellow. A bit odd, perhaps, but nice.

Where to next?

GHOST SPIDER

Gwen tensed up, ready to fight.

She looked around, but there was nobody in the area who appeared to pose a threat.

Was the mystery spider here? Or was it somebody else?

She spotted a television in a store window, playing the news. She leaped to the street and walked over to it. Two newscasters sat in a polished studio, discussing the latest stories.

"... and, fortunately, the chicken was returned to retail. Our next top story is 'The Mysterious Case of the Spidermen'."

The screen transitioned to a collection of photographs of varying quality on a red background. The images depicted numerous figures either leaping between buildings, clinging to walls, or swinging from weblines. She recognised her own costume among them.

"Residents both of New York City and around the world have mourned the untimely death of Spiderman, now known to the public as Peter Parker, but eyewitnesses have reported seeing other spider-like heroes in the Brooklyn and Manhattan metropolitan areas. Five or six new Spidermen have been spotted and named by the superhero enthusiast community."

A slightly fuzzy picture of a figure clad in red, blue, and grey and wearing a long coat slid to the top left corner of the screen. A caption appeared underneath it, reading "Spiderman 2".

"Many have noticed the obvious similarities between not only the costume but the build of this mystery spider and the original Spiderman. Some believe the two to be the same person and think that the funeral was an elaborate ruse."

A clip of people chanting and holding signs saying "SPIDERMAN LIVES" showed up.

"As you can see, some people have been very vocal in their insistence."

A picture of Gwen, clad in her costume and swinging through the forest outside of Alchemax, slid to the top of the screen. Its caption read "Ghost Spider".

"This spider-person's arrival date and gender are hotly debated by the superhero enthusiast community, but most agree that they showed up in New York on the day of Spiderman's alleged death. Based on that coincidence, their colour scheme, and their tendency to show up out of nowhere, the community has dubbed this spider 'Spiderman's Ghost' or 'Ghost Spider'. A small but vocal part of the community believes them to actually be Spiderman's ghost."

GHOST SPIDER

Oh, so the spider-sense was referring to her.

The reporter droned on, now discussing a fellow clad in black and grey, while Gwen let her thoughts roam free.

It was coincidental to the point of being ironic that she thought of herself as a ghost and was now called Ghost Spider. She supposed it was a fitting moniker. Maybe she should adopt it. After all, Spiderwoman wasn't incredibly imaginative. Ghost Spider was all-new, all-different.

Of course, it hammered home the point that Gwen was a ghost. She didn't want to forget that. Considering what she had seen from the other dimension, she wasn't supposed to be alive; at least, she assumed so. And considering that the mystery spider was male and resembled Spider-Pete, it was likely true in other dimensions as well. Maybe she should be dead, but since she was here, she was going to make the most of the time she had before she died for real.

Did her dad know she was missing? Was he freaked out? Was he scared? Was he sad?

No, she didn't want to think about that. Gwen looked around instead, trying to distract herself.

Strangely for a Saturday evening, the street was empty. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the dark clouds above and settled on the asphalt, softening outlines with a thin veneer of white. It was cold, oddly cold for early October, oddly cold considering the warmer weather in the past week.

Was it a side effect of the dimensional collider? She had no way of knowing.

RELATIVE CHAOS

The spider-sense cut through her stream of thought. Gwen sighed and prepared herself for battle. "CHAOS" was never a good sign.

A grey-haired woman turned a corner and walked down the road.

What sort of threat did an older lady pose?

Oh wait; she knew that older lady. That was Peter's aunt. Or mother. Probably aunt.

Mrs. Parker seemed to recognise Gwen instantly. "You're that spider-ghost from the news," she remarked.

Gwen nodded. She wasn't going to deny being a ghost. After a pause, she said, "I'm sorry about your ne-"

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

"-frick." Gwen spazzed briefly, pressing her hand against the window to stabilise herself.

The woman stifled a chuckle with her hand. "Are you all right, young lady?"

Gwen straightened herself and brusquely brushed the snow off of her head and shoulders. "Yes! Never better! I'm doing juuust fi- augh!" She interrupted her own statement with a startled yell as she spazzed out again and keeled over.

Mrs. Parker strode to her side. "Do you need help? Is there anything I can do for you? A doctor or something?"

Gwen did a kip-up and landed on her feet. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I've got this. I can do it on my own."

"It certainly doesn't look like it, but to each their own. Now, what was it that you were saying about my ne-frick?"

"Nephew. Nephew. I'm sorry about him, Mrs. Parker."

Mrs. Parker nodded and smiled ruefully. "I knew he was going to get hurt one of these days. I just… thinking about it doesn't prepare you for it actually happening."

"I understand."

Mrs. Parker shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Those other spiders, if you see them, tell them I'd love to meet them. I'd love to get to know Peter's… his, uh, replacements. I'll give you my address. Feel free to stop by whenever you need." She searched through her coat pockets and looked up. "Do you have paper?"

Gwen handed Mrs. Parker her notepad and pen. The older lady jotted down an address and handed them back.

"Thank you. I'll try to find the rest of them," Gwen said. She leaped into the air and swung off, eyes open for trouble.


	24. Day 8 - SPYENTIST

**OKAY I AM REALLY SORRY THIS CHAPTER IS A LEGIT MONTH LATE [feel free to blame my beta but actually please don't because she's got her own things that she's got to do]**

**I assure you [stares pointedly but not acerbically at GTA] that chapters will come out a lot more quickly from now on. The story's written. It just needs to be polished.**

**As always, enjoy!**

* * *

That was a really weird dream.

Gwen hoisted herself upright, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the bed. All she could think about was how bizarre her dream was. It had been some mashup of _Star Voyage: Trekker_ and _Guitar Villain_, except everyone looked like Claire Foy. And her father was playing darts or something.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

She was jolted out of her thoughts by a short, painful spasm.

Based on the angle at which the light from the window landed on the floor, it was too early to be awake.

Gwen contemplated falling back asleep but ultimately decided that it would be better to remain awake. At the very least, she could rest. She flopped backwards onto her bed to think.

Her top priority right now was to find the other spiders. The question was, how?

SPYENTIST

Oh, for the love of… now her spider-sense was making terrible puns? Could it possibly get any _less_ helpful?

YES

Gwen chuckled to herself. At least her spider-sense was making an effort, she supposed. It could be worse.

Hold on a second... Of course! Since the collider was located in Alchemax, the spider-people were almost guaranteed to go there and investigate it. She could go there to meet them. She still had the "borrowed" lab coat and glasses from two nights ago. She would blend right in and wait for the others to come along. Heck, they might even be there now. She had to hurry.

After a rushed breakfast, Gwen swung out of her dorm room window, wearing her disguise over her street clothes over her costume. She parenthetically wondered if the billowing white coat made her look even more ethereal. It didn't help her aerodynamics, but it would be worth it if she looked cool.

She reached Alchemax without incident and took shelter in a secluded niche on the rooftop terrace. She pulled off her mask and hood, tucking the latter under her shirt, and donned her spectacles. Despite it being Sunday, people were inside the building.

Gwen entered the building through the door on the rooftop terrace, unobtrusively passing through the cafeteria and nodding a silent hello to the security guard. A trace of paranoia lingered at the edge of her mind, a fear that someone, namely Dr. Octavius, would discover her presence. Nevertheless, she somehow managed to not freak out, and she passed through the stark white halls without incident.

Should she be here?

YES

Gwen smiled to herself. She was on the right track for once. Good.

However, if she was going to pretend to be a scientist, she also had to pretend to do a job of some sort. She didn't want to be deemed suspicious because of loitering. It probably wouldn't be easy to find some task that she could perform with her limited scientific knowledge, but…

"Hey, Miss! Ms. Osborn? C'mere!" A tall, gangly male scientist in his late thirties beckoned to her.

Gwen glanced at the name embroidered on the lab coat. "Yessir?"

"C'mere, I need your help with something."

That was fortuitous.

Gwen jogged after the man, who entered a smallish grey-walled room.

He proffered his hand for a handshake. "You're one of the new interns, right?"

Gwen decided to play along. "I, uh, yes, I am. Definitely. Uh, Gwen Osborn. Nice to meet you."

"I'm Rob Petrie. Pleasure to meet you as well. I need a bit of help with this experiment. Can you please bring me the little glass containers labeled 'Petrie's Dishes' from Room 4911? Put them on this tray so you can carry more, but don't stack them on top of one another."

Mr. Petrie handed Gwen a plastic cafeteria tray and ushered her out the door.

He seemed to be in a rush.

As Gwen navigated the maze of hallways, searching for Room 4911, she thought she heard something moving around in the ceiling. She was on the top floor. Was something, or someone, in the air vents?

It didn't matter. Time would tell. Right now, she had a job to do.

Room 4911 was on the opposite side of the building. It was near a room that she recognised as the one in which she had been held captive by Dr. Octavius. She could hear two or three people moving around and talking within it.

Gwen entered Room 4911 and found Petrie's dishes on a table located by the window. There were around twenty of them, and they all contained some amber substance that resembled Jello. She managed to fit them all in one layer on the tray.

She returned the tray of science Jello to Mr. Petrie. He placed it on a table next to a microscope and several glass jars of varying sizes. "Is that all of them?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, now, can you go back down and bring over my files? They're in three blue folders, same room, right next to where the dishes were."

"Sure thing."

There was a distant crash.

"Dang it, Spagna," Mr. Petrie muttered under his breath.

Gwen couldn't help but ask, "Spagna?"

"Guy in the org-chem department. Always ruining something. But he never seems to notice. Listen, he sees me trip over an ottoman one time, and I never live it… you know what, never mind. Just get those dishes."

Gwen nodded and walked out the door. It was clear from out in the hall that there hadn't been just one crash. There were sounds of fighting.

Was one of the other spiders here?

As Gwen walked towards Room 4911, the noises grew louder. Were they coming from Dr. Octavius' lab?

SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

...something borrowed, something blue? Gwen didn't recall being invited to any weddings as of late.

If only her spider-sense was a little less vague, she'd be able to get herself out of danger more easily. Her spider-sense was terrible at its job. Either that, or she needed to keep practicing.

She entered Room 4911 and fetched the files without a problem.

She walked quickly back through the hall, her head down, the files clutched tightly to her side. So far, everything seemed to be going smoothly, but as for how long that would last, she wasn't-

_Smack._

Gwen tumbled to the floor. The files flew out of her hand, and the papers inside scattered across the tile.

What the-?

Somebody materialised in front of her. It was a guy about her age, wearing a cheap Spiderman costume and holding an entire computer. He sprinted down the hallway past her.

Was he one of the spider-people from the news?

Loud noises emanated from Dr. Octavius' office. Gwen heard two voices: that of Dr. Octavius, and that of a man whom she didn't recognise.

She abruptly saw the mystery man when he was shunted through the wall by one of Dr. Octavius' claws. He wore the same costume that Spider-Pete had worn, except for the sweatpants.

Was he another spider-person?

Gwen had to help these guys out. But first, she had files to deliver.

She picked up the scattered files and jogged back to Mr. Petrie, narrowly avoiding a stray pincer.

As Gwen placed the files on Mr. Petrie's lab bench and turned to leave, he called after her, "Hold on!"

Gwen paused. She heard laser fire and the yelling of scientists echo through the halls.

SECURITY CALL

Mr. Petrie handed Gwen a comically-oversized laser cannon. "Take this. There's been a security breach."

She took the cannon and hesitated for a moment. She switched it to stun and knocked Mr. Petrie into the workbench. Science Jello interspersed with glass fragments flopped onto the floor.

Gwen set down the gun and muttered to herself, "That's one foe taken care of."

She yawned. She felt inexplicably exhausted. It was probably just the effect of the disjunctions.

She ducked into a broom closet and changed into her Spiderwoman – no, her Ghost Spider costume. She could return for her street clothes later.

No, that was a bad idea. She'd take it with her and leave it somewhere else.

It didn't matter. She had to go. She could hear Mr. Petrie stirring.

Gwen came out of the closet and entered the halls. They were barren and strewn with glass shards. She followed the trail of destruction to the cafeteria. A gaggle of scientists (Herd? Gang? Flock?) milled about the cafeteria, toting laser blasters and looking towards the ones on the terrace. A couple of them turned and saw Gwen.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen dodged the first wave of blaster fire and made a mad dash for the cafeteria doors, webbing up nerds as she ran.

BREAD HINDRANCE

As Gwen burst through the doors onto the balcony, she tripped on a discarded bagel and fell flat on her face.

Fortunately, the bagel had sent her beneath the cannon fire. She attached a webline to the feet of one scientist and flung him into his coworkers. She stood up and hurried towards the edge of the terrace.

Two distant figures leaped through the woods, pursued by the unmistakable silhouette of Dr. Octavius. A platoon of white-coated people armed with laser blasters followed on foot. Gwen threw herself over the railing.

She swung through the snow-covered trees, observing the scene. She webbed a few of the ground troops up before they could hurt anybody and received laser fire for her efforts. She remained out of sight of Dr. Octavius, angling around her and heading to the spidermen.

The two spider-people swung side-by-side, holding onto the computer box. Gwen recognised it from Dr. Octavius' office. It must have held important data. She headed for them, hoping to expedite their getaway.

All of a sudden, the spider on the left glitched out and dropped the box. Both heroes plummeted to the ground. Gwen was too far away to do anything. She picked up the pace, hoping that they would right themselves in time.

Alas, they did not. Both spiders landed on a thin branch. The smaller one grabbed the cord of the computer console.

She started swinging as quickly as she could. Neither the branch nor the cord would hold for long. And Dr. Octavius was rapidly encroaching on them.

The cord gave way first. The console plummeted to the ground. Then the branch snapped, and the two spiders followed. Dr. Octavius caught the console before Gwen could react.

There was still time. She had to restrain the spiders before Dr. Octavius could pummel them into oblivion.

She darted through the forest, shooting weblines to string up the two spidermen. They exclaimed in surprise.

OCTAGONS

Dr. Octavius looked up and recognised Gwen instantly. Her face developed a wide, unsettling grin. She set off in pursuit.

Holy cuss word. She had SAWBLADES?

Gwen had to end this fight fast. Those blades had to be neutralised.

She changed direction and fired two webshots. Dr. Octavius' claws adhered to two nearby trees. The older lady abruptly stopped, gasping as her harness dug into her stomach. Gwen kneed her in the face.

One more hit should do the trick.

She leaped backward, then charged forward and slammed her foot into Dr. Octavius' solar plexus. The older lady dropped the console. Gwen webbed it to herself.

The ordeal was over in ten seconds. She wished her last encounter had gone so smoothly. Unfortunately, having recently been knocked out and sedated didn't help one's fighting tactics.

Gwen landed on a branch a short distance above the two spidermen, who were strung up like snared insects.

LIKE YOU

Could she trust these people? They might be spider-people like her, but they might not be good guys.

Then again, the enemy of her enemy was her friend.

She pulled off her mask and grinned.

"Hey, guys."


	25. Day 8 - SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

**WARNING: LONG RANT INCOMING**

**I got two very nice comments from The Evil Author and wanted to reply but couldn't cuz he's got the PM feature turned off. So, here are my replies. They contain info that you all would probably like to see.**

**First of all, thank you for reading and reviewing!**

**Second, yes, there are discrepancies between the canon and this fic, and I won't claim that this fic is set in canon. I misremembered some information from _Spiderverse_ when writing this fic, before Netflix posted it. Three major differences come to mind:**

**1\. In the movie, Miles was at Visions Academy for at least a couple months before Gwen showed up. In this fic, he shows up at roughly the same time that she does. Changing this element to make it canon would affect little to none of the plot.**

**2\. In the movie, Kingpin's collider is at the basement of his penthouse, and the Alchemax facility is located a considerable distance away. It doesn't hold a collider. In this fic, the Alchemax facility is where the original collider is, and it's considerably closer, only about twenty minutes away as the spider swings. (The new one will be at Kingpin's penthouse.) Changing this element to make it canon would affect the plot pretty significantly. (E.g. how would Gwen know to be at Alchemax at the time at which Miles and Peter B. are there?)**

**3\. In the movie, the spiders recognise each other upon first glance, or even when they are near each other, like when Gwen is at her locker and Miles passes behind her. (This is, however, not incredibly consistent, as the B-Team doesn't recognise the others until after their introductions are over.) In this fic, Spider-Pete doesn't recognise Gwen as a fellow spider when they meet face-to-face. Changing this element to canon would probably affect the plot.**

**And finally, I shall never abandon this fic. It will be completed, come hell or high water.**

**Thanks to everybody who has bore (beared? borne? boreded?) with me through these past few months. I hope the schedule slips haven't impeded your enjoyment of the fic. As always, enjoy!**

* * *

Gwen looked down at the two startled spidermen, sizing them up.

SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

That could mean any number of confusing, conflicting things. She decided to judge them only on the basis of what she could see.

The spiderman on the left was dressed in the exact same style of suit that Spider-Pete had worn. However, he was wearing sweatpants and no shoes and otherwise looked considerably less dignified. (Of course, that could have been because he was trussed up like a snared insect.)

The one on the right was smaller and younger-looking. He wore a cheap Spiderman costume and basketball shoes and had dark skin. Could he be Miles?

"Gwanda?"

Yep, definitely Miles.

"It's Gwen, actually."

The guy on the left spoke up. He sounded like Spider-Pete, except his throat sounded like it was filled with sand. "Oh, so you know her. That's cool."

"Long story short, we met in school."

"The long story can wait. Are you gonna let us down?"

Gwen rolled her eyes. "I don't know, would you rather stay here?"

"Okay, enough sarcasm. Let us go."

She obligingly leaped to the higher branches and yanked the weblines free. Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles both plummeted to the ground.

It couldn't hurt to show off a bit more.

She tossed the computer to Miles, then dove backwards out of the treetop, intending to shoot a webline and slowly descend to the snowy surface.

JAMMED FINGERS

Rats. She'd forgotten to repair her webshooters last night.

Of course, both of Gwen's gloves misfired, and she plummeted headfirst to the ground. Served her right for trying to show off.

"You okay, man?" asked Miles, handing the computer back to Anti-Spider-Pete.

"That was completely intentional."

Anti-Spider-Pete nodded. "Sure it was."

Gwen smacked her gloves against her leg and dusted the snow off of her suit. "Let's get going before Alchemax shows up with bigger guns. Where are you guys headed?"

Anti-Spider-Pete shrugged. "Uh, I dunno, someplace where we can make another goober?"

Gwen blinked, then nodded. It was best to just play along. "Okay, I'm coming with."

"I, uh, I like your haircut," said Miles, his eyes looking anywhere but at her haircut.

Gwen furrowed her brow. "You don't get to like it. C'mon, let's go."

She took off, Anti-Spider-Pete hot on her heels.

Miles muttered, "How many other spider-people are there?"

"Save it for Comic-Con." Anti-Spider-Pete webbed the back of Miles' shirt and yanked him along for the ride.

What was Comic-Con? Was it like DashCon?

"Where are we headed?" asked Gwen.

"The bus station. We gotta find a lab or something."

Gwen was not opposed to the idea of taking the bus instead of using her dysfunctional webshooters, but she didn't know why Anti-Spider-Pete would do so.

"Why the bus?"

"'Cuz it's less exhausting. Plus, Miles isn't too good at this spider business."

Miles, still dangling from Anti-Spider-Pete's webline, nodded reluctantly.

Gwen nodded. Her suspicions were correct. Miles had gotten his powers very recently, possibly after she had arrived at Visions Academy. No wonder her spider-sense wasn't triggered as strongly by his presence in the beginning.

Speaking of which, there was a constant faint buzzing at the nape of her neck. Was it just because, as was repeatedly said, Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles were like her? Or was something more sinister at play here?

There was only one way to find out.

The bus station wasn't far from Alchemax. A small concrete terrace with a glass roof stood 80 yards from the parking lot. Anti-Spider-Pete and Miles ran to pick up two coats that had been unceremoniously discarded on the ground not far away.

Darn it. Gwen had left her street clothes in Alchemax. Well, it didn't matter at this point. She still had the school uniform at Visions, at least.

They all pulled off their masks and boarded a bus. Miles dumped a handful of spare change into the farebox. The bus driver muttered something about "nutty cosplayers".

Serendipitously, the bus was nearly empty, aside for the bus driver and a half-asleep middle-aged man at the front.

Was Anti-Spider-Pete actually named Peter? He looked enough like him, except he was older. Much older. Definitely a lot worse for wear. His nose looked like it had been broken and re-healed at least a dozen times. He also had a fading black eye and a five-o-clock shadow. At least his hair was brown. That was normal.

"What's your name?" Gwen asked.

"I'm Miles," said Miles.

"I know your name. I don't know his." Gwen gestured to Anti-Spider-Pete.

"My name's Peter B. Parker."

"Specifically with the B?"

Anti-Spider-Pete shrugged. "Yeah. The B stands for B-"

"You know what, it doesn't matter," Gwen interrupted. "Nice to meet you."

"You too. What's your full name again?"

"Gwen Stacy."

Peter B. blinked, and his smirk vanished. Coincidentally, the bus passed into a tunnel.

Why had her name turned his countenance so sour? Was it… wait. That was the same reaction that she had had upon seeing Spider-Pete for the first time.

Gwen decided to lighten the mood. "Or, if you're my dad when he's angry, it's GWENDOLYN MAXINE STACY, GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU WALKED IN HERE AT MIDNIGHT WITH TWO BLACK EYES AND A LIMP!" Gwen switched to the best impersonation of her dad that she could manage.

Miles laughed. Peter B. cracked a grin, though he still seemed uneasy, even wistful.

"What was it like?" asked Miles. "I mean, like, what was it like back in your dimension?"

"Well, uh, I've been Spider-Woman for the past 2 years."

Gwen mentally facepalmed. She was Ghost Spider now. Old habits were hard to break.

"And yeah, normal superhero stuff happened. Saved my dad. Joined a band. I don't know if that's normal, but still. But…"

Gwen hesitated. She needed to mention the really important moment, the moment that had truly kicked off her superhero career. But she couldn't bring herself to talk about it. She was supposed to forget about it! She couldn't just… tell people about it!

"... I couldn't save… my best friend. So, now I save everyone else. And I don't do friends anymore. You know, to avoid distractions."

Gwen parenthetically wondered if "everyone else" included herself. No, she was too far gone. She was a ghost. But back to the story.

"Then I got sucked into this portal, and it sent me here. I got blown into last week. Literally.

"Long story short, I got arrested, broke out of jail, beat up a gang, found my way to Visions Academy, impersonated a Russian, stole government files, broke into Alchemax, got sedated by Doc Ock, broke out of Alchemax, got a new haircut, broke into Alchemax again, broke in a third time, and now I'm here."

Miles and Peter B. stared at her.

"Could you say that again, but slower?" asked Miles.

Gwen facepalmed. "Okay, long story even shorter, my spider-sense told me to go to Visions Academy. Then I met you there."

"Oh. That's cool."

"So, uh, Peter, how 'bout you?"

She was genuinely interested in hearing about Peter B.'s experiences. Maybe he would hint at why her name made him so sad.

Peter B. sighed, as though he was sick of telling his origin story. "Where I'm from, for the past 22 years, I've been the one and only Spiderman. Pretty sure you know the rest. I saved the city, fell in love, saved it again, got married, saved it some more, maybe too much. Had some marital issues, made a couple dicey money choices. Never invest in a spider-themed restaurant.

"Then you know, typical superhero stuff over the next few years, kept saving the city, broke my back, a drone flew into my face. I buried Aunt May. My wife and I split up… but I handled it like a champ."

Peter B. started blinking hard to suppress his tears.

"Did you know that seahorses mate for life? I mean, can you just imagine being a seahorse and seeing another seahorse and making it work?

"She wanted kids. I… It scared me.

"Well, all of a sudden, I got pulled through this real weird portal thing one day. And weird things happen to me a lot, but this was really weird. Like, really. What was even weirder was that here, I was dead. And blond. Dunno why. Maybe I should dye my hair."

Miles chuckled a little. "Hey, wait a minute. What if Spiderman from here had dyed hair? I mean, think about it. He dyed, and then he died. You know?"

Gwen and Peter B. blinked.

"Yeah, that wasn't funny," said Peter B. He leaned back and rested his feet on the seats on the other side of the aisle.

"Okay, maybe a little. Good try," countered Gwen. "So, uh, what's your plan now?"

"We're gonna make another one of these," said Miles. He lifted a broken flash drive out of his pocket and held it out. "It's an override key, for the collider."

"A goober," corrected Peter B.

A what?

"Yeah, a goober, whatever. But Peter broke it."

Gwen examined the flash drive. "He did?"

"Yeah, but keep that between you and me." Miles switched to a confidential whisper. "He's embarrassed about it."

Gwen could have heard Peter B.'s eye roll from three counties over. She chuckled.

RELATIVE CHAOS

"Hang on, I think I know a place where we might be able to get help." She handed the "goober" back to Miles, who stowed it away.

"To make another goober?"

"Yeah. I hope so. Probably."

Gwen pulled out her notebook and flipped through it until she found Mrs. Parker's address. She tore out the page and handed it to Peter B. "This is the place."

"Neat. Then here's where we'll go."

After a minute of slightly awkward silence, Miles said, "Uh, I'm... sorry about your friend."

"Don't worry about it," Gwen replied. "But thanks."

That was nice of him. Miles seemed like a nice kid. Awkward and goofy, perhaps, but nice. Confused and weirded out by his powers, for sure, but nice nevertheless. Quite the opposite of herself. At least he had help. The poor kid deserved help.

"I know how hard it is, having to figure all this stuff out on your own," she said.

"Yeah, it's nice not being the only spider-person around."

"Definitely."

Miles hesitated before continuing. "You… wanna take a selfie or something? You know, two spider-people from different dimensions chilling together? In the same dimension?"

Gwen grinned. "Yeah, why not?"

She lifted her phone. She and Miles smiled for the camera.

"Wait, can I-" Peter B. started to say.

The camera clicked.

"C'mon! I wanted to be in it!" groaned Peter B.

"I mean, you're in the selfie. Just not your face. And, you know," Gwen smirked. "That might be a good thing."

Peter B. heaved a sigh. "Teenagers are the worst," he muttered under his breath.

"So now, like, how are you gonna get the picture to me?" asked Miles. "Can… uh… can I have your number?"

"Uh, I dunno if that'll work. You know, this phone's from another dimension and all that. So… huh." Gwen pressed her hand to her forehead and thought.

"Just air-drop it to each other," said Peter B.

Miles and Gwen exchanged a look. "What's air-drop?" they asked simultaneously.

"You're Gen-Z-ers, and you don't know what air… right. Different universe. Here." Peter B. sighed and sat upright. "I'll show you how it works."

Gwen hadn't realised how embarrassing it was to be taught how to use technology by a guy who was probably old enough to be her dad. Spoiler alert: it was very embarrassing.

Miles hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between the photo on his phone and Gwen. "Uh, if you ever want to do friends again, I'll keep a slot open."

Gwen froze.

She wasn't going to open up to Miles. Not so soon. Not here. Not now. Not yet.

At the same time, she did get lonely. Not that she would ever admit it.

He was a nice guy. He wouldn't make a bad friend.

No. Not a chance. Gwen wasn't going to open up just so she could get hurt again. Or hurt someone else again.

"I'll... keep you posted."


	26. Day 8 - PRIVATE SHED

At around five in the evening, Gwen, Peter B., and Miles finally found Mrs. Parker's house. At least, it was somewhere on this street. They kept walking, looking for the house number.

"Where exactly are we going again?" asked Miles.

"To Peter's aunt's house," replied Gwen.

Peter B. blinked. "Wait, what?"

She had figured he would have recognised the address.

"She offered to help all us spider-people, if I remember correctly. She'd probably point us in the right direction."

"No, no, this is a bad idea. I can't talk to her. No." Peter B. stopped moving.

"C'mon, man, don't you wanna get a new goober?" asked Miles.

"Oh for crying out loud, couldn't we go anywhere else but-"

"Nope," interrupted Gwen. "Oh, look, that's it. That's definitely the place."

Gwen and Miles stopped in front of a small two-story house with pale green siding. The front lawn was practically buried under tributes to Spiderman. Peter B. still stood several paces behind them.

"C'mon, Peter," said Miles.

Peter B. relented and walked over. He shot a webline at the doorbell and exhaled.

"We.. should probably go."

"We're literally right here," said Gwen.

Peter B. paused. "Nope, bad idea, bad idea, let's go." He turned and walked away. Gwen shot a webline and dragged him back in front of the door.

RELATIVE CHAOS

"You guys are so sweet, but no more fans today, please," said Mrs. Parker as she opened the door.

Why was she holding a baseball bat?

Well, she wasn't any longer. Mrs. Parker's eyes bugged out and she dropped the bat as soon as she saw Peter B. Gwen clenched and unclenched her teeth.

"Peter?"

Mrs. Parker walked over to Peter B. She looked like she had seen a ghost. For all intents and purposes, she had. Her real nephew was gone.

"Hey, Aunt May." All the tension in Peter B.'s body disappeared as his doppelganger's aunt (or was it his aunt's doppelganger?) laid a hand on his chest.

Gwen wanted to say, "It's not him. It's not your Peter. I'm sorry. I get it. But don't look at him the same way. I'm trying my hardest not to." But she stayed silent.

She looked back over at Peter B. He looked so much like her own Peter… he had the same face, the same eager grin when he talked about technology, a similar stance. But it wasn't the same. He was too well-built. He was too old. He was too jaded. But hadn't Peter become jaded in the end?

It didn't stop hurting, even after two years, no matter how much she shoved aside the pain. She couldn't imagine what was going on in Peter B.'s and Mrs. Parker's heads, although she thought she understood.

"This is gonna sound nuts," said Peter B., "but I'm from-"

"An alternate dimension," finished Mrs. Parker.

How did she know about that?

"You look tired, Peter."

"I am."

"And older. And… thicker." She furrowed her brow in displeasure. "Jeez, are those sweatpants?"

Gwen replied, "Yup. They're sweatpants, all right."

Why did her voice sound so much weaker than it should have? Was it sympathy? She felt like she should laugh, but she didn't.

"I was there when… it happened. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Parker," said Miles.

"What dimension are you from?" she asked.

"Brooklyn," he replied without hesitation. "Uh, do you know where we could make another one of these?" He handed Mrs. Parker the flash drive.

"A goober."

Was everyone except for Gwen some type of nutso?

Mrs. Parker's face hardened. "Follow me."

PRIVATE SHED

Mrs. Parker led the spiders through her rather nice house and out to a shed in the backyard. She strode with a purpose.

A shed? What the heck? Also, why did she kick open the screen door? Was it stuck or something? Or was she making a concerted effort to be dramatic?

Gwen felt a knot of unease build in her gut. Was it a trap? It had better not be one, especially given that her webshooters were acting up.

It was a decent backyard, though. Small but quaint. Not much snow had fallen over here.

Peter B. started to needlessly blather on. "Yeah, I got a shed where I keep all my spider gear, too."

Mrs. Parker pulled a key out of her pocket and inserted it into the padlock on the shed door. The padlock shone with red light, and the shed door slid open, revealing a sleek, glowing red-and-white interior. It looked like an elevator shaft. With a smirk, she gestured for them to enter.

Okay, this had better not be a trap.

The spiders walked into the elevator, and it slid down, revealing a cavernous, red-floored space below, filled with what looked like spider-paraphernalia.

"Okay, this place is pretentious," said Peter B.

Gwen could barely contain her excitement. This was possibly the coolest thing she'd ever seen. There was a motorcycle! A spider-themed motorcycle! And a wall of costumes, and maps of the city, and dossiers on a whole bunch of supervillains, some of whom she didn't even recognise, and, like, a lot of stuff!

Miles asked, "Woah, is your place anything like this?"

Peter B. replied, "Yeah, but way smaller. Take away the jeep. Imagine a futon. Just like this, you know?"

Gwen walked over to admire the motorcycle. It was red, with blue wheel rims and a lot of metallic accents. It looked like a souped-up Harley. She felt a strong surge of jealousy. She wanted to learn how to ride a motorbike. Had Spider-Pete known how? How did he get all this stuff?

What was that picture Peter B. was looking at? Whatever it was, he looked sad. Maybe it was Em Jay? Was that his ex-wife?

"Hey, this looks like a cape," said Miles, gesturing to one of the spider-costumes. His tone of voice gave the impression that he was referencing an inside joke.

Peter B.'s frown faded away.

It was kind of Miles to make his friend feel better like that. He was a nice guy.

LINCH KING

Something else caught Gwen's attention: a posterboard with an aptly large picture of the giant dude that she had seen. He was at the centre of the display, and all the other people in it seemed to be connected to him. She walked over to it. The giant guy's name was Wilson Fisk, otherwise known as Kingpin. That made a surprising amount of sense, considering what her spider-sense had said. The people pinned to him included Liv, a guy with white hair and grey skin, a purple-and-black guy with an upturned collar on his cape, and some sleazy-looking dude with purple skin. It was funny how the pins connected everything.

The other three people walked over to her. "Kingpin knows we're coming," said Miles. "We're gonna be outnumbered."

"Don't be so sure," said Mrs. Parker with a smirk.

LIKE YOU

Gwen looked up into the shadowy blackness above. There were three, no, four figures there. They all looked very different.

"Hey, fellas," said a tall guy wearing a black trenchcoat and fedora. His face was covered by a mask with weird white goggles. His trenchcoat whipped around in some nonexistent wind.

"Is he in black-and-white?" muttered Miles.

"Where's that wind coming from? We're underground," remarked Peter B.

"Wherever I go, the wind follows. And the wind smells like rain."

Okay, that was odd. This dude looked like he had been pulled from the pages of a cheap detective novel.

She redirected her attention to… a ten-year-old girl sitting on top of a red-and-black robot. The girl looked like she had been yanked out of an anime show.

"Hi guys! Konichiwa!" The girl proceeded to say some other indiscernible stuff in Japanese while she did some funky anime poses with her robot. The robot looked pretty neat.

"This could literally not get any weirder," said Peter B.

"It _can _get weirder!" said… holy cuss word. It was an anthropomorphic pig, like something from Tuney Loons, dressed in a Spiderman costume. Gwen rubbed her eyes. The pig was still there, and his hands were covered with water.

"I just washed my hands. That's why they're wet. No other reason."

LIKE YOU

Gwen looked at the group of oddball spider-people. Because that was what they were, right? They had spider-powers, just like she did. They might have been a bit… different from her and from Miles and Peter B., but they were like her. She smiled. It was strange how she felt that much less alone right now.

"You're like me," said everyone simultaneously.

"Okay, now, why don't you all introduce yourselves?" Mrs. Parker requested.

Everybody started talking simultaneously. Gwen tried her best to make herself heard.

"My name is Peter Parker."

"I'm Peter B. Parker."

"Uh, I'm Miles, and I'm from Brooklyn."

"I'm Peter Porker, the Amazing Spider-Ham!"

"My name's Gwen Stacy."

"My name is Peni Parker, and this is my robot, Sp/dr!"

"I was bitten by a spider that came out of some totem in an antique store."

"I was bitten by a radioactive pig!"

"I was bitten by a radioactive… wait, what?"

"I got bitten by some weird-looking spider in a subway tunnel."

"I was bitten by a spider on a field trip."

"Uh, same here."

"I'm from New York in the year 3145."

"I'm… from Brooklyn."

"In my world, it's 1933, and I'm a private eye."

"I'm a junior in highschool in Connecticut City."

"I'm a reporter for the Daily Beagle. It's headquartered in Moo York."

"I, uh… what's my job again? Do I still have one?"

"I play drums in a band, but other than that, I don't do that much."

"I like making graffiti art, and I used to play baseball."

"I like to drink egg creams, and I love punching Nazis."

"I have a psychic link with the spider that lives in my father's robot. We're best friends forever!"

"I frolic and I prance and I do this with my pants and I-"

"Okay, okay, that's enough," said Peter B., waving his hands. "How did you get here?"

Black Spidey – no, that sounded wrong. Greyscale Spidey replied, "It's kind of a long story."

"We basically just landed here," said Spider-Ham.

"Okay, maybe not that long."

Peni said, "Now, we're just trying to get back home."

"The only way back is through the collider gizmo," said Greyscale Spidey. Jeez, that was a cumbersome name. What about… what was that genre with the dark backdrops and private eyes and stuff? Film noir. That was it. She could call him Noir.

"The problem is, one of us has to stay behind and destroy it," added Ham.

Of course, that was the issue. Sacrifices always had to be made. The good thing was, the decision was simple. Gwen was already a ghost. She raised her hand, not expecting to be contested.

"I'll do it," she said. Noir, Ham, Peter B., and Peni also said it simultaneously.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen glitched out and hit the floor. So did the other spiders, except for Miles, who watched with concern.

"That's exactly it," said Miles. "You guys can't do it. If you stay here, you'll all die. I'm gonna shut off the collider, and I'll get you all home before I do it. I made a promise."

He sounded awfully confident in his abilities for a kid who had only gotten his powers two days ago.

Gwen and the other spiders stood up.

"Who are you again?" asked Noir.

Peter B. grinned. "This is Miles, and he's gonna save the multiverse."

A guy who's been Spiderman for 22 years should honestly know better than to put so much faith on the shoulders of such an inexperienced kid.

Miles smirked. "Yeah, man."

"He can turn himself invisible! Watch this, guys!"

Miles gritted his teeth and strained but remained completely visible.

"I… can't do it on command."

"He can't do it on command! But it is cool! Show them the zappy thing!"

Gwen rolled her eyes. It was almost comical how inexperienced he was. She would have laughed had the fate of the multiverse not rested on his shoulders. Instead, she watched him and secretly hoped that Miles might succeed.

He didn't.

"Can't do that on command, either."

"He still can't do it on command! But… uh, he can do so much more! What else can you do?"

"Just those two things."

"Just those two things," Peter B. repeated, sounding less enthusiastic than before.

MILES OF INTEREST

Miles looked embarrassed, and Gwen didn't blame him. She had to admit that she felt a little bit bad for him. It's hard to realise that there's something that you really wish you could do but can't. She decided to stick up for him a little.

"I've seen him in action," Gwen said to Noir, Ham, and Peni. "He's got… potential. If nothing else. I think he can get us home."

Saying that made her realise that she actually believed it. She probably shouldn't. She shouldn't get her hopes up.

Noir squared his shoulders and approached Miles, fists up. "Okay, little fella. Kingpin's gonna send a lot of mugs after ya. I'm talking hard boys, real biscuit boxers. Can you fend them all off at once?"

What in heck was a biscuit boxer?

Miles put up his dukes awkwardly. "Uh, I've never actually fought anyone…"

"Surprise attack!" Noir kicked Miles' legs out from underneath him. He hit the floor hard.

Gwen shoved her useless belief out the window and decided to focus on the facts.

"Can you rewire a mainframe while being shot at?" asked Peni, her eyes slits. She tossed some tech-looking thing at Miles as he got up.

"Wait, what?"

"Show me."

"Surprise attack!" yelled Noir. He punched Miles in the face, who went down like a sack of cement.

Gwen approached Miles. "Can you swing and flip with the grace of a dancer?"

"Can you close off your emotions so you aren't crippled by the moral ambiguity of your violent actions?" asked Noir.

That was actually a good question.

"Can you help your aunt create an online dating profile so she can get out of the dang house every once in a while?" asked Mrs. Parker.

Wait, what?

"Can you float through the air when you smell a delicious pie?" asked Ham, floating in a similar manner. Gwen didn't smell any pie. Ham's nose must have been more sensitive than hers. Either that, or he was just plain nuts.

Gwen re-railed the impromptu testing procedure. "Can you be strong?"

"Ruthless?" added Peni.

"Disciplined?"

"Psychic?"

"I don't know?" said Miles, looking thoroughly overwhelmed.

Gwen remembered a monster. She remembered a ten-foot-tall beast, many times stronger than she was. She remembered massive claws digging into her leg, scales scraping her hands, talons raking across her face, a bludgeoning tail. She remembered the pain, worse than any beating she had ever taken at the hands of a superpowered foe. She remembered the scars.

She helped Miles to his feet.

"Above all, no matter how many times you get hit, can you get back up?"

The only reason she was still alive was because she kept getting back up. Could he do the same?

She kicked him back down.

"'Cause when a Spiderman is on the floor…"

"Come on, Miles!"

"When you think you can't keep going…"

"You can do it."

"Get up, Miles!"

"Guys, cool it," said a rather concerned Peter B.

"Come on!"

"Let's go, Miles."

"Get up, Miles."

"You got this."

It was a mess, but it was a mess that he needed to learn. Sometimes learning things the hard way was the best way. It was the way that had taught her.

But was Miles able to take it?

"Come on, Miles, get up."

Miles tried. Gwen could see it in his face. But he wasn't determined enough. He gave up and slumped to the floor.

The other spiders pulled into a huddle.

"You need to be more honest with yourself," Gwen told Peter B. "He's not ready."

"Yeah, he can't do this," added Noir. "He's just a kid."

"We're gonna have to stay and do it for him."

Peter B. looked distraught. Gwen couldn't blame him. She was sad, too. She wished that Miles could have succeeded. But… it wasn't the case. And everyone had to accept that. Even Miles.

"He's looking right at us while we talk about him," commented Noir.

The spiders turned to look at Miles. But he was gone. The elevator platform slid upwards with nobody in sight.

"Miles?" called Peter B.

"You see? He… can turn invisible."

Gwen watched the platform rise up and clang as it stopped at the ceiling.

Tough love worked. But had they all been too tough on him? Had they lost all hope of saving the multiverse without casualty? Or was it a lost cause to begin with?

Would Miles let the others help him again?

He had to help himself, though. That was part of the problem.

Mrs. Parker finally broke the awkward silence.

"So… you folks ready for dinner?"


	27. Day 8 - RELATIVE CHAOS

Gwen, Mrs. Parker, and the rest of the spiders sat around the kitchen table, finishing off their pulled pork sandwiches. (Strangely, Ham didn't have a problem with eating them.)

"Do you guys have any good stories from your time in the field?" asked Mrs. Parker.

"Oh, I got some!" Gwen brightened up. "You wanna hear a funny one or a cool one?"

"Either or," said Ham.

"All right, so this happened like a year and a half ago. I was fighting this one guy who was basically an animal trafficker, and he's super fast and strong and stuff. I won, but it was a tough fight, and he cut me across the face right here." Gwen drew an invisible line across her forehead. "So, I went back home, and I'm back in my room, and I've gotten ready for bed and stuff, and I figured, I've gotta clean up this cut. So I headed to the bathroom and ran into my dad. He looked at me funny and asked, 'What did you do to yourself?' I panicked and said, 'It's ketchup!'"

Peni laughed. Peter B. and Mrs. Parker both cracked a smile. Noir remained as impassive as ever. Ham had vanished for no apparent reason.

Gwen chuckled to herself. "Yeah, I suck at cover stories."

Peter B. commented, "You sure do. May, did your Peter do anything stupid? Or was he just too perfect for mistakes?"

Mrs. Parker chuckled. "Oh, not at all! Everybody makes mistakes! I'll tell you how I found out about his secret identity. He was a senior in high school, and I was out of town on business for Alchemax."

"Wait, you work for Alchemax? The place where they built the collider?" asked Noir.

"Used to. I quit because first of all, I found out that they were battling my nephew, and also because this upstart, Liv, decided she'd try and take over my position. She could have it, for all I cared." Mrs. Parker rolled her eyes.

"Back to the point. I ended up coming home a day early, and I called Peter to tell him that the business trip had been terminated early. He didn't pick up. I walked back into the house and saw Peter, sitting on the ceiling of the kitchen in his underwear, halfway through a bowl of mac and cheese. We both screamed."

Everybody at the table cracked up, even Noir.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen spazzed out and fell through her chair. Noir yanked the chair out of her before her atoms rejoined.

"Thanks, Noir."

"Don't mention it."

Ham poked his head out of the head of the faucet and said, "You have some wonderful storm drains, May, I gotta say. I just had to take a second look." He pulled the rest of his body out and sat on the counter next to the cookie jar.

Everybody else exchanged concerned glances.

"So, what do you all do for work?" asked Ham.

Noir raised his hand. "I'm a dick."

Mrs. Parker grimaced, trying to disguise a laugh. Peter B. instinctively covered Peni's ears. She reached up and removed his hands, saying, "I've heard worse."

Noir cocked his head to the side. "What's the problem? I'm a dick! You know, a gumshoe? Is something wrong with that?"

Peni and Gwen exchanged confused yet amused looks.

"Oh, for Chrissake, I mean I'm a private eye! Why, what's-"

"Don't ask," said Peter B., cutting him off.

Ham peered over the edge of the ceiling-mounted lamp. "You can cuss in this dimension?"

"No, Peni's-" Peter B. started to say.

Peni cut him off with an eager grin. "Yes."

"You guys are so lucky! I can't cuss! I can only say symbols!"

"You wh-" began Noir.

"#%€ &%¢*§¿&%!" yelled Ham.

The table went silent. Peter B. instinctively covered Peni's ears. Gwen tried to figure out how he had managed to say those symbols out loud.

Ham continued, "¢*§¿! ¶ ~€! +¶¶ +€!"

Mrs. Parker said, "Okay, enough of that."

"But I'm not actually cussing!"

"Yes, but you're using a cipher. And you have the intent to swear."

Under his breath, Ham muttered, "%ππ+##~€." He vanished back into the light fixture.

Peter B. glitched out for a couple of seconds.

Gwen tried not to laugh. She had no idea what he'd said, but it was still funny, maybe more so because she didn't understand it. She did want to know what Mrs. Parker had meant by saying that Ham was using a cipher.

"So, uh, Mrs. Parker…" began Gwen.

Mrs. Parker chuckled. "Oh, please. Call me May. Or Aunt May, if you prefer."

Gwen furrowed her brow. "But… we're not related. That'd be weird."

"You don't have to share blood with someone to consider them your family."

Gwen blinked. That was an unexpectedly philosophical answer.

She loved her dad and missed her mother. They were her family, first and foremost. Could somebody have other families besides just those to whom they're related? Did that count as a family? Technically, it wouldn't, at least not by the literal definition of one. But was it possible to become close enough with somebody that you might consider him a brother, even if he wasn't? Or an aunt, even if she wasn't?

Maybe it was, but it wasn't anything that Gwen had seriously considered until now. She was lucky to have a caring father who supported her heroic endeavours and to have had a wonderful mother who had raised her pretty well. But other people might have had to think about this more so than she would ever need to.

"Gwen? You all right?" Peni waved a hand in front of her face.

Gwen blinked and returned to earth. "Oh, uh, yeah, sorry, I'm fine. Just spaced out, that's all."

"Like I asked," said Noir, "you play the drums, right?"

"Yeah."

"Splendid. See, I play tenor sax part-time in a jazz ensemble, and our drummer was… well, he's now an ex-drummer. We need a replacement."

"As much as I'd love to help, I can't visit your dimension without putting my life on the line. Also, I've got school."

"Ah, school." Noir balanced his chair on two legs and folded his arms behind his head. "When I was your age, I walked five miles to school. Uphill."

"Both ways?"

"Yes, I walked back from school, too."

"Uh, I mean, did you walk uphill both ways?"

"No, that wouldn't make sense."

Peter B. chuckled. "I take it you didn't have buses back in your day?"

Noir replied, "They existed, but they weren't for carting kids around. They're starting to make them for schools, but they're pretty rare, at least as far as I know."

Gwen recalled that Noir was from 1933. He had an air of seniority about him, too, which confused her.

"Uh, how old are you?" she asked him.

"Older than you are."

Ham glitched out briefly.

May stood up. "Who wants dessert? I have fudge."

Everybody raised their hands eagerly. Who in their right mind wouldn't want fudge?

May walked into the kitchen.

RELATIVE CHAOS

"Oh man, fudge is the best!" exclaimed Ham. "I normally only get it at Christmastime!"

"You have Christmas in your dimension?" asked Gwen.

"Yeah, who wouldn't celebrate it?"

Peter B. raised his hand. "There's Christmas in my dimension, but I celebrate Hanukkah."

"I promise to punch thirty extra Nazis for you," said Noir. "And yeah, my dimension has Christmas, too."

"Thanks for that."

"There's still Christmas in my dimension, despite the Creeds!" said Peni. "Is Santa real in your dimensions, too?"

"I don't think he's real in any dimension," replied Noir.

Peni's eyes widened. "He's not?"

How old was this kid? Ten? Definitely no older than thirteen. Somewhere in the preteen range. Somewhere in the "you-should-have-figured-out-about-Santa-Claus-already" range, which doubles as the "you-probably-haven't-learned-about-Santa-Claus-yet-and-that's-a-problem-for-all-us-folks-in-the-know" range.

There was no way in which this conversation would end well.

"Uh, he is! Definitely! For sure! I know it! Yeah, he is!" stammered out Peter B.

Now Gwen was annoyed. "Come on, don't lie to her!"

"Well, we can't just stamp on Peni's innocence like that!"

"But she deserves to know the truth!"

"Maybe the truth is something different in her dimension! How would we know?"

Peni looked thoroughly heartbroken. "You mean he's… not real?"

Noir appeared stunned. "Uhhh…"

Ham butted in. "Uh, yeah, Noir was just kidding around! He wouldn't know! Go ask your parents!"

"But my dad's dead!"

"Then, uh, go ask your mom!"

Peter B. interjected. "Please, Peni, don't worry about it too much. It's okay to believe."

Everyone started talking at once, trying to make themselves heard.

"In something obviously false?"

"I mean, the tech is different in her world. Maybe it's possible?"

"But who would wanna do that?"

"Can we just… stop talking about this?"

"I wanna know the truth! Is Santa real or isn't he? You're confusing me!"

May cleared her throat and silenced the hubbub. "Stop arguing. I have fudge."

Everybody quieted down and took some fudge. It was the perfect distraction.

"So, uh, what was that about making an online dating profile?" asked Peter B. after a couple of awkwardly silent minutes.

May chuckled. "I've been single for long enough, I think."

"Do you need, like, technical help or something?"

May shook her head. "No, I know my way around a computer."

"You sure?" butted in Gwen.

"Yes, I'm sure. I programmed a neural net two years ago that identifies phishing scams, tracks the IP address of the original sender, installs upside-down-ternet on the device to screw with the UI, and whitelists any phone numbers connected with the email account on seventy-two different telemarketer call lists."

Gwen's mouth hung agape.

"Huh?"

"You lost me after neural net," said Peter B.

May folded her arms over her chest and smirked. "I lose most people after neural net."

Noir said, "You lost me at program."

"I understood that. It's child's play," said Peni. "But I can imagine that for you, in as archaic of a society as you are, that's quite an achievement."

"Archaic society?" muttered Peter B.

"Then why on earth would you need our help?" asked Ham.

"Because I don't know what sixty-something-year-old males are looking for in a woman. I mean, what do I put on the profile? What do I leave off? How do I embellish it? How do I get more clicks? Should I tell them I was widowed ten years ago? Should I mention that Spiderman was my nephew?"

Peter's uncle was dead in this universe? Huh. Gwen was starting to get accustomed to the weird differences between worlds. Of course, she'd thought she'd seen everything until Peni and Ham showed up.

JAMMED FINGERS

Oh, right! Good idea, spider-sense! Thanks for actually being useful for once!

Gwen asked May, "Uh, if you're so good with tech, could you fix up my webshooters? They keep jamming."

May grinned. "Of course! Give them to me, and I'll take a look at them tonight. Now, why don't you all head off to bed? It's getting late."

"And not go on patrol?" asked Noir.

"May's right," said Gwen, handing over her gloves. "Not sleeping actually makes our atomic disjunctions worse."

Everybody at the table gave her a blank look.

"Atomic… what?" asked Peter B.

"The glitching thing."

"Oh. Gotcha."

"Where will we sleep?" asked Peni.

That was a good question.

May slipped Gwen's gloves into her back pocket and thought for a minute. "Uh, there are three rooms and six of us. Hmm… Peter and Peter can take Peter's old room, and I have a sleeping bag for one of you… Gwen and Peni can take the guest room, since there's a pull-out cot… I'll be in my own room… what about Peter?"

"Which one?" asked Peter B., Ham, and Noir simultaneously.

"Uh, I mean the Peter in sweatpants and the Peter in a fedora will share a room. How about you?" May directed the last question to Ham.

He replied, "I can sleep on the couch."

"Okay, that works. Is everybody okay with that?"

Gwen had no qualms about the setup. Neither did anyone else.

Thirty minutes later, she found herself lying in the cot in the guest room. It was comfortable, as far as pull-out cots go. Peni was half-asleep on the bed, and her spider was on the dresser.

Suddenly, Ham burst through the door. Well, not completely literally, nor did he open the door, but he did appear through the keyhole in a rather sudden fashion. Gwen and Peni both yelled.

"Why do you keep doing that!" exclaimed Gwen.

Ham shrugged. "I'm used to getting places this way. Just wanted to say goodnight to you guys before we all turn in."

"But, how do you do that? How can you get through tiny gaps like that?" asked Peni.

"I'm, uh, I'm 2.5-dimensional. I think that's how you'd put it in your worlds. I look and for all purposes am two-dimensional, but I can still move in 3D space and interact with 3D things. Like this picture, for instance." Ham leaped up and spun around a sepia-tinted photo from the wall, settling it back into place.

"But that doesn't explain how you can defy gravity," said Peni.

"That's toon physics for you." Ham pulled a pair of spectacles and a graduation cap out of thin air and donned them. He flipped through a comically thick textbook, laid his finger on a paragraph, and began to read. "'Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its condition.' -Paco, 1994."

"And… you operate by the laws of... toon physics? Even though you're not in a world with toon physics?" asked Peni.

"Yeah, sure. We operate by the principles of the world that we're from. I mean, look at Peni. She can summon anime backdrops out of thin air and jump forty feet in the air to land in the cockpit of her robot. And Noir's still in black-and-white. And Gwen still follows the laws of physics from her universe, which happen to be exactly the same as those here. If there was a spider here from a universe with two extra quarks, he'd use the rules of physics of a universe with two extra quarks."

Gwen blinked. Ham knew a surprising amount.

"How do you know all of this? I mean, you're a-"

"A cartoon character, I know," finished Ham. "I get that a lot. But I've been Spider-Ham for 35 years. I know my stuff."

Gwen made a mental note not to underestimate Ham in the future.

"You, uh, don't look a day over 35," she said.

"Yeah that's another thing. I don't age. Pretty convenient, if you ask me. Well, good night, folks!" Ham gave a wave, then vanished under the door.

Gwen tried to comprehend everything that had just happened. Ham was really weird. At the same time, he was kind of cool.

"How old are you?" Peni asked after a few moments of silence.

"Uh, take a guess."

"Fourteen?"

Why did everybody think Gwen was so young?

"Nah, sixteen. How about you?"

"Guess!"

"Uh, you're like ten?"

"I'm eleven and three quarters."

Okay, so she was close.

"How many people have you killed?" asked Peni, sounding as chipper as ever.

Gwen blinked. "Uh, one. No, two. Both were accidents."

"In... two years?"

"Yeah."

"That's lame."

"Why, how about you? And, uh, how long have you been doing this for?"

"Twenty-three people. Over the past five and a half months. And none of them were accidents."

Peni sounded both completely serious and entirely proud of herself. Best not to dwell on that.

All of a sudden, Gwen burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Peni.

"It's, well, I was early in getting to this dimension, and Miles made a joke about him being on time and everyone else being late because of relativity, and… never mind. You wouldn't get it."

Peni asked, "Could you explain it to me? Maybe then I'd get it."

"Never mind. It's a moot point. Go to bed."

"Aww, come on!"

"Good night!"

Gwen rolled over and faced the wall, ignoring Peni's pleas. After a couple minutes, she drifted off to sleep.


	28. Day 9 - PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

**Hello, all apologies for vanishing on you all. Yes, this story will be completed. Yes, there are only six more chapters left. And yes, this is my favourite chapter in this story. So I hope the wait was well worth it for you all.**

**Also, big shoutout to gammathetaalpha, my betareader, who unfortunately has other commitments and therefore can't finish betaing Stranded. She's been such a big help to me, though, and she's an awesome writer herself, so I recommend you give her stories a look!**

**As always, enjoy!**

* * *

When she woke up, Gwen's first thoughts were about her Peter. She saw his face, thin and shadowed, his wire-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and indenting the sides. She saw his blue eyes, squinting at a homework problem or a chemistry assignment. She saw his long, thin frame, a buttoned-up polo shirt hanging loosely off of his narrow shoulders, slacks supported only by a tightly-cinched belt.

Why couldn't she forget? Why did it hurt so much, just thinking about those minuscule details, the simple irregularities that your brain latches onto and never lets go of? Why did she allow him to keep hurting her?

Peter was awesome. Sure, he wasn't popular and wasn't conventionally good-looking, but he was funny, good with a snappy comeback, intelligent, quick-witted, kind, honest, loyal…

Gwen was nothing of the sort. She tried to be, sometimes, but it never worked.

Was that why Peter was the hero in every dimension but hers? Was hers an anomaly?

According to her phone, it was 8:22 in the morning. There was no way she was going to fall back asleep at this point.

Gwen got up and sat on the wall of the room. The atmosphere in here reminded her of her granny's house. From the floral accents to the tchotchkes in every nook and cranny, from the crocheted doilies on wooden tabletops to the weapons of caffeine construction… were there standard old-lady decor rules that she wasn't allowed to know about? Did they all shop at the same Bath, Bed & Between or something?

It was a shame that May wouldn't get to be a grandmother. She would have made a good one.

Upon inhaling deeply, she realised why she had woken up in the first place. The smell of coffee and waffles drifted into the room. Normally, Gwen would be out of the room in seconds, but her stomach was twisted into a knot.

"Breakfast is ready!" May called from the kitchen.

Peni bolted upright and rushed out the door, her spider in close pursuit. "Good morning, Gwen!" she bade the older girl as she left.

Gwen clutched her knees to her chest. She wished she still had Peni's youthful exuberance. She was only sixteen, four or five years older than Peni was, but she sometimes felt more like she was sixty. Was that a normal part of growing up, feeling like you were older than you really were?

Imagine how Peter B. must have felt. Twenty-two years of fighting crime, of battling the dregs and vileness at the bottom of society. Eleven times as long as Gwen had spent doing the same. No wonder he was so worn out.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Well, speak of the devil.

A knock sounded from the door to Gwen's room. "Hey Gwen, you awake? It's breakfast time."

Gwen shook her head, then remembered that Peter B. couldn't see her from the other side of the door. "I'm not hungry."

"What's that?"

Gwen raised her voice, which had inadvertently dropped to a low mutter. "I'm not hungry."

"You sure? May's waffles are to die for. At least, they were in my world."

Gwen detected a hint of mournful nostalgia in Peter B.'s voice. Still, she said nothing.

After a minute, Peter B. spoke up again. "You feel alright, kid?"

Gwen didn't respond. The silence would speak for itself.

Oh, right. She didn't want the silence to say anything.

"Go away."

Peter B. slowly pushed the door open. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why you're feeling so glum."

"And I'm not saying anything until you go away."

Peter B. sat on the wall next to Gwen.

A long silence ensued. Gwen could hear the clattering of cutlery and the distant murmur of conversation in the kitchen.

The silence was deafening. It stifled her thoughts. She was grateful for the silence, though it was tainted by the presence of another person, one who wanted to talk.

Perhaps she should speak first, to prevent Peter B. from commandeering the conversation.

Should she be here?

YES

Gwen finally relented and spoke first. "D'you ever feel like you're not special? Like you don't belong 'cuz you're too normal?"

"Uh… sometimes. Tell me more."

At least he didn't point out that she had broken her pledge.

Out of genuine concern for Peter B.'s emotional state, Gwen asked, "Why don't you tell me? I'll do my best to help you out."

"Because you're trying to change the subject. Tell me more."

Gwen hesitated. What could she say that wouldn't say too much?

"I… don't really want to."

"C'mon. Talk to me." Peter B. sounded more annoyed than he did reassuring.

"Am I bugging you? If I am, I can just go. We don't have to talk about this. I'll just eat breakfast, and it'll all be good."

"No. It won't be. You've gotta learn to talk about your problems, kid."

Gwen tried to hide her grimace. It didn't normally bother her, but she felt aggravated from being called a kid. She hated being treated like a kid. She was sixteen, for crying out loud!

The words flowed out of her before she could stop them.

"I hate being called a kid. I'm not one. Well, legally, I am, but I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I can do things by myself. I can solve my own problems. I can handle my own emotional crises. I don't need to talk things out. I'm tough. I'm not gonna let any little mood swings bug me. I'll seal it all in, and everything will be fine. I'm good at bottling up my emotions."

Peter B. was silent for a couple moments. So was Gwen. Had she shared too much? Did she need to keep a closer eye on the seal to her inner self? If it popped open without her knowledge, she'd be in trouble.

Finally, the older man spoke up. "You can't hide from your own feelings."

"Oh yeah? And why not?" Gwen snapped.

"Woah, woah, woah." Peter B. waved his hands to get Gwen to calm down. "Because they're gonna spill out. Just like they did right there."

"I know they did. I've just gotta cork myself up more tightly."

Peter B. drummed his fingers on the wall for a couple of seconds. He asked, "You know anything about hydraulics?"

"No. Is that, like, a monster from Greece?"

"That's a hydra. Hydraulics is the use of water pressure to move things."

"You mean like a power washer?"

"Yeah, kind of. So, uh, power washers work by building up a ton of pressure in the hose leading to the tiny nozzle. Then, when you crank open the valve, the water shoots out of the opening. It can knock over pretty much anything in its path if you pressurise it enough.

"The problem is, you can't build up too much pressure in the hose. If you do, and if you don't open the valve, something's gonna break. A seal's gonna come loose. The valve might swing open all on its own. The hose could rupture. Something will backfire, no matter how tough the power washer is, if you put enough pressure into it.

"It's the same way with emotions. You leave yourself bottled up, as you put it, for too long, and with emotional baggage still building up, something bad's gonna happen. It doesn't matter how tough or determined you are. You'll snap. Everything's gonna go to pieces. That's why you have to let out the pressure, a little at a time, to ease the load it has on you."

Gwen thought about what Peter B. had said. It was true, or at least it seemed true. It clicked, even though she didn't really want it to. It made too much sense. It was too right to be true.

Peter B. asked, "You've had a lot of pressure build up in you, haven't you?"

Gwen inhaled and exhaled. "What if I don't wanna open the nozzle?"

"Sometimes, you don't give yourself a choice. Sometimes, it hurts to do that. But it's never a bad thing, I've realised."

Gwen inclined her head downwards. A valve opened in her heart.

"Peter," she whispered.

"What?"

"No. Not you. The other Peter. The one from my dimension. My best friend."

Peter B. edged closer to Gwen. "Tell me more."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me about him."

Gwen nodded. "He was really smart. He was super good at math and science and stuff. He helped me with homework a lot. He made webshooters for me, like three weeks after I got my powers."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He designed the web fluid and everything. He helped make the suit, too." Gwen cracked a smile as she remembered how kind Peter had been to her.

"The first time I used the webshooters, I fell into a rose bush. But Peter fixed them up, and they worked so much better. He even gave me instructions on how to make more web fluid. I remember adding potassium nitrate instead of potassium sulfate once, and the capsule blew up in my face just before I slotted it in."

Peter B. chuckled. So did Gwen. A weight that she didn't know had been there dropped off of her shoulders.

"He was always so nice to me, even though I wasn't super nice to him back." Gwen's smile quickly faded. "I didn't deserve to have him as a friend. He was too nice, and then I hurt him. I hurt him badly. I hurt him a bunch of times, but he finally snapped. And… that's why he died."

"He killed himself?"

"No…" Gwen winced inwardly. "I killed him. He drank a serum to make himself superhuman, but it turned him into a monster. I had to stop him... but he died."

Peter B. looked solemn.

"I killed him, and you know what's the worst part? He was jealous of me. Peter was jealous that I had powers and he didn't, that I was cool and he wasn't. Nobody should be jealous of me!" Gwen slammed her fist against the wall. A picture swung back and forth.

"I'm not a good person. I'm a terrible person. I pushed my own best friend to self-destruction. He should have gotten the spider-powers, not me. I should be dead, not him. Peter Parker is the Spiderman in all the dimensions except mine. I'm an anomaly. I shouldn't be here. I'm a ghost."

Gwen leaned backwards against the wall and exhaled.

Peter B. turned to look at her. "I let Gwen Stacy die."

Gwen sat upright. "You what?"

"We… we were good friends in my universe. We went to the same college, and she ended up dating my best friend. So Green Goblin took her hostage on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then he shot a bomb just as I was about to reach him. It went towards a hospital, and I had to stop it. I couldn't let everybody in there die. I got rid of the bomb, and then I saw Gwen falling… and I tried to get there, but she hit the river before my webline reached her…. Do you know what happens to you when you hit water at terminal velocity?"

Gwen shivered. An unpleasant memory rocketed through her brain.

Peter B. sniffled and wiped his nose on his wrist.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, you're not alone. We've lost people, too. And we're here for you. All you have to do is open up that valve, and we'll be right there alongside you. All of us."

Gwen nodded solemnly. Did it hurt Peter B. to look at her? Did it hurt him in the way that it had hurt her to look at Spider-Pete, in the way that it sometimes hurt her to look at him?

"Let's go get breakfast," she said at last.

Peter B. hopped down from the wall. "Yeah, before the waffles get cold."

Gwen walked downstairs feeling as light as air. Her chest felt free. No water weighed her down. She could float like a specter if she wanted.

Why did she bother bottling up her emotions, anyway?


	29. Day 9 - HOUSE PARTY PROTOCOL

Those were strong contenders for the best waffles Gwen had ever had. The ones at the Three Whales Diner near her house were always great, but May's waffles might just have been better. She would need to stop by when… if she made it home, just to verify.

Also, May had successfully repaired her webshooters. They worked better than ever. The lady had serious mechanical skills for a senior citizen.

Gwen loitered in the parlor while everybody waited for Peni to finish making the new "goober". Peter B. stood next to her, examining the pictures on the walls. Noir lay on the couch and fiddled with a Rubix Cube. Ham sat next to him, drinking espresso, which seemed like a terrible idea. She remembered how it had affected Spider-Pete.

"This was on the wardrobe, and I'm fascinated with it. All these little squares… they're different, but... not really. I don't get it."

"Are you colour-blind?" asked Ham.

"I don't know what that means."

"What colour is the cube?"

"It's… purple."

"No."

"Blue?"

"No."

Peni walked into the room and triumphantly handed Peter B. the flash drive on a string. He hung it around his neck.

For some reason, Gwen felt like something was missing.

MILES OF INTEREST

Oh, right.

"Has anyone heard from Miles?" she asked.

"No, but I'm sure he's just clearing his head," said Peter B. "Look, guys, I know him, and he's got what it takes."

No, he didn't. But that was beside the point.

"He'll probably come back through that door, recharged and ready to-"

MILES OF INTEREST

Miles burst through the front door, still wearing his cheap Spiderman costume. He looked frightened and out of breath. "My uncle!"

"Hey, where have you been?" asked Peter B.

"My uncle, Aaron, he's, he's the Prowler! And-"

"Woah woah woah, slow down. What happened?"

"He, he works for Kingpin! He's trying to kill me! And-"

"This is a pretty hardcore origin story," commented Noir. Peni smacked him.

"It's okay. We'll figure it out," Peter B. said.

"Did he follow you?" Gwen asked.

"N-no, I don't think so," replied Miles, sounding very unconfident.

OCTAGONS

Well, that answered that question.

Gwen pulled on her mask and hood. The other Spidermen suited up as well.

The doorbell rang.

One of Doc Ock's tentacles burst through the door and flipped over May's tray, spilling a pot of coffee.

Darn it. Gwen wanted coffee.

"Nice place. Real homey," said Doc Ock as she strode through the door.

"Oh great, it's Liv," spat May. She edged towards her baseball bat.

"I… guess I was followed," commented Miles. Gwen sighed.

Miles turned to flee but was blocked by a grey-suited and grey-skinned man who entered through the kitchen. "You messed up big-time, kid."

The man was followed by some sort of scorpion-like cyborg who said something in Spanish. The spiders backed towards the fireplace.

"Uh, you're Scorpion, right?" asked Peter B. "Well, we're the Spider- uh, the Spider-Gang."

"Would you mind taking this outside?" asked May.

Noir replied, "We don't pick the ballroom. We just dance."

HOUSE PARTY PROTOCOL

Gwen couldn't help but grin under her mask. With six – no, five spider-people and only three thugs, one of whom didn't appear to be super-powered, this fight would be over in no time flat. So long as the goober didn't get… oh no. She was thinking of the flash drive as a goober now. That was a bad sign for her mental health.

So long as the, ahem, FLASH DRIVE didn't get destroyed, and Miles and May didn't get hurt, this would be simple. Just a little housewarming party.

HOSTILE SITUATION

Doc Ock spotted the flash drive hanging around Peter B.'s neck. "Oh, I think I'll be taking that." Her claws lashed out at him. The battle was joined.

Gwen leaped out of the way of Doc Ock, then launched herself at the grey guy. She knocked him sideways with a swift jab to the jaw. The grey guy scrambled to his feet and ducked beneath another blow. He pulled out a gun. Noir knocked it out of the guy's hand and engaged in good old-fashioned fisticuffs with him.

Gwen darted aside and started trying to distract Doc Ock, who continued to beat up Peter B. It didn't look like long before she'd have the flash goober. No wait, the flash drive.

Doc Ock managed to knock Gwen backwards with one of her pincers. Gwen blocked Scorpion from hitting May by intercepting his tail. It hurt a lot. Her left arm went numb where the stinger sunk into it. As she tried to shake some feeling back into it, the grey guy knocked her into the kitchen.

May grabbed her baseball bat and yelled, "I said take it outside!" She knocked the grey guy into her front yard with a mighty swing worthy of a softball player.

Gwen saw the flash drive get ripped from Peter B.'s neck and fall to the ground. Miles bobbled it but missed. One of Doc Ock's claws grabbed it.

Gwen shook out her left arm, which was starting to regain its feeling. She webbed her way over to Doc Ock. She pulled the flash drive out of her pincer and kicked her down. She jumped to the fireplace and was blindsided by Scorpion. The flash drive fell out of her grasp.

Miles managed to grab it before Doc Ock could. All of a sudden, he froze. He started to flicker in and out of sight.

What had scared him?

Of course, Gwen didn't have time to figure it out, since she was busy trying to disable Scorpion's tail. Was it natural or robotic?

RELATIVE CHAOS

A purple and black figure pounced into the room through one of the formerly unbroken windows. It leaped over Miles, then stared him down.

Was that the Prowler?

Peter B. webbed the goober drive out of Miles' hand. "Leave the kid alone!"

Gwen moved aside as he knocked the Prowler into the far corner of the parlor. She tussled with Doc Ock's pincers.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen spazzed out and landed on the floor. Once she recovered, Doc Ock grabbed her with a claw and started to pound her into the floor. Gwen wrangled the claw aside and managed to punch her squarely in the face.

Scorpion smacked Gwen with the broad side of his tail. She flew right through the roof. Scorpion pursued her. She dodged his next strike, leaping backwards from rooftop to rooftop.

It was much more fun to fight in the open air.

She leaped forward and kneed Scorpion in the chin. Before he could recover, Ham stabbed him in the shoulder with what looked like a broken china plate. Gwen charged forward and kicked him in the gut. Scorpion fell backwards. He looked like he was about to throw up.

She leaped down and landed solidly on the grey guy's back before he could shoot May. May finished him off with a baseball bat to the cranium. The grey guy went limp.

Gwen rushed over to Sp/dr, who was under siege by Doc Ock and her sawblade-wielding pincers. Peter B. headed over, too, before he was jumped by Scorpion.

Where was the flash drive? She had lost track of it in the commotion.

Peter B. probably had it. Also, where was Miles? And the purple prowler guy?

Gwen charged towards Doc Ock and almost reached her before getting knocked aside by a tentacle. It pinned her down, and a sawblade moved towards her.

Gwen wrenched her still numb left arm free from the tentacle's grip and used it to knock the sawblade aside. Blood sprinkled onto the grass. She ripped her other arm free, scrambled forward, and punched Doc Ock in the nose. Her goggles snapped. Liv hollered and tried to brush the broken plastic out of her face. Sp/dr knocked her down with a robot leg to the chest, then raised its own sawblade.

"No killing!" yelled Gwen.

Sp/dr stopped. "Aw, come on!"

A gunshot rang out.

The purple guy fell from the rooftop, pursued by Miles.

Wait, did someone get hit? Also, who had the gun?

Peter B. reacted before Gwen could. He slugged Kingpin and knocked the gun out of his hand. Miles stood up and grabbed the Prowler, swinging away.

At least Miles was okay. And at least the cops were… wait. Gwen thought she had heard a siren, but those cars pulling in front of May's house weren't cop cars.

LINCH KING

Kingpin's hired goons stormed the premises and retrieved the three supervillains. It was time to go.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen saw May take shelter in the Spider-Shed.

"Let's scram," she said.

Everybody swung away from May's house.


	30. Day 9 - IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

**Oh CARP I forgot to post this yesterday... I'm sorry. Next chapter will be up on Thursday.**

* * *

The Spider-Gang took shelter in an alley behind a Burger Monarch restaurant. Gwen inspected her left arm, which had taken quite a beating. It felt less numb now, and she could finally hold things in it without exerting a death grip. Since she was right-handed, it didn't matter too much.

"Where's Miles?" asked Noir.

Peter B. looked around frantically, as though Miles was still there but had turned invisible. "Oh no, he's not here. Miles! Miles, c'mere!"

"Can't believe you lost him again," commented Ham.

"I, no, I didn't lose him. He's just… he's just… something happened to his uncle. They'll both be okay? I think?"

Peni's face was impassive. "The Prowler's dead."

"How do you know?"

"Sp/dr has infrared scanners. He's in the next alley over."

"Is Miles over there?" asked Gwen.

"Uh, no. Just a couple of cops."

Oh, this wasn't good at all. Miles was in no shape to help out at this point, considering that the poor kid's uncle had just died. She was going to have to sacrifice herself. But that was okay if it meant that everybody else stayed safe.

"We need to find Miles," Peter B. said. His brows were set in a hard line.

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Gwen knew that her spider-sense could help her find Miles. She knew that the Spider-Gang could comfort him. But was it really the right choice? Was having a load really the best idea? Would he die if he came along?

She shook her head. "No. We shouldn't. We need to get to the collider now. Miles would… he'll just slow us down."

"Then who will stay behind?" asked Noir.

"I will," said Gwen and Peter B. simultaneously. They looked at each other.

"It's okay if I die. There's nothing left for me back home, anyway," said Peter B. calmly. "My wife's gone… well not really, but kind of. There are other heroes in my dimension: Ricochet, Prodigy, Sable, just to name a few. The public… isn't super fond of me. I won't be missed much."

"Yes, you will. Your wife… your ex-wife will miss you. So will all the people you've helped, and all the people who've helped you.

"And I'm supposed to be dead. Don't you get it? Why do you think the media calls me Ghost Spider? Why do you think all the heroes in other dimensions are like you, not like me? Why is Gwen Stacy dead in every dimension but mine? I shouldn't be alive!"

Peter B. adopted a soothing tone. "Yes, you should be. You're a hero in your world. You've saved plenty of people, including your own dad."

Gwen's voice started to break, and she exerted all her willpower to hold herself together. "I'm no hero. I killed my own best friend! And I'll fight tooth and nail to make sure I don't have to see Peter Parker die again!"

"And I'd do the same for Gwen Stacy."

Gwen balled her hands into fists. "Not if I have anything to say about that."

Ham spoke up. "Woah woah woah. Nobody's gonna die. We just… need to figure out what to do with Miles."

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

Again, Gwen was struck with a ray of hope. Miles couldn't be the MILES OF INTEREST for no reason. But at the same time, she couldn't put all her faith in someone else, especially if that somebody had already been proven unreliable. She could only rely on herself. That was one reason why she didn't want to let friends help. Gwen couldn't control friends, but she could control herself.

At the same time, she owed it to Miles to help him feel better.

Where was Miles?

VISION OF BROOKLYN

Gwen exhaled. "I know where Miles is. Follow me."

Of course, as she remembered only when the Spider-Gang reached Visions Academy, she didn't know which part of the building he was in.

That question was answered a couple seconds later, when Noir caught a book that had been cast out of a third-story window. Miles' name was on the cover. Noir threw the book back through the window, and the Spider-Gang followed it in.

Miles' room looked like that of any teenager, except in even more disarray. He must have had a roommate, since there was a bunk bed, neither level of which was properly made. (Not that Gwen was judging, as she only made her bed when her dad forced her to.) Clothes were strewn across the floor, as were his books and notes. They looked like they had been recently scattered. Gwen, not known for her tidiness, knew that even her room at home wasn't as messy as this one.

Amidst the mess stood Miles, looking just as disjointed as did his room. He wiped a tear from his eye as he looked up at Peter B.

"Hey buddy," said Peter B. "You all right?"

Miles turned aside and softly shook his head.

Peter B. laid his hand on Miles' shoulder. "We've all been there. For me, it was my Uncle Ben."

Noir replicated the gesture. "For me, it was my Uncle Benjamin."

"For me, it was my dad," said Peni.

Gwen blinked hard. "For me, it was my best friend."

"Miles, the hardest thing about this job is that you can't save everybody," added Ham.

She couldn't help but smile. Though he was a goofy cartoon character, Ham was probably the wisest member of the bunch, if not the smartest one. It likely had something to do with him having been a superhero for 35 years.

"But, but I feel like it's my fault," said Miles. "You wouldn't understand."

Gwen remembered a dreary day in school, limping between classes, an unending bell tolling in her head. She remembered an even worse night afterwards, the bell striking the insides of her skull. The bell was still there, ringing more softly now, but she had given up on muffling it. It would slow to a stop eventually, but it wouldn't go away.

Miles needed to learn what had taken her two years to understand.

"Miles, we're probably the only people who do understand."

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

Gwen saw the door handle rattle.

"Oh no, it's Ganke," said Miles.

Everybody jumped onto the ceiling just before a stocky young Asian fellow wearing headphones walked in. He sat down in the rolling chair and pulled out a comic book. As Ganke slid to the left, the spiders scrambled right, trying to stay out of his field of vision. When he spun to the right, they moved left.

Finally, inevitably, the kid looked up and saw everybody.

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

"Hey," Miles said awkwardly.

"Do animals talk in this dimension?" asked Ham. "'Cuz I don't wanna freak him out."

Ganke passed out.

Gwen helped Miles drag his roommate into bed while Peni, Noir, and Ham left the room. After he pulled the covers over him, Miles turned around to see only Peter B. standing there. Gwen was halfway out the window.

"What's going on?"

IMPENDING MORAL CRISIS

She looked down. She really didn't want to leave Miles behind. But she had to. For his sake. For everybody else's sake. Peter B. might have deluded himself into thinking that he would save everybody, or that Miles could, but Gwen needed to sacrifice herself.

But would Peter B. listen to her? He never seemed to. He always had his own agenda. Sure, it was understandable, seeing that he was a loner. Maybe he didn't want anybody else in on his plans because he didn't trust anyone? But how would Gwen make him see that Miles couldn't help? How would she make him see that he couldn't stay behind?

As little as she trusted herself to handle the situation, she was the only person who could.

"Bye, Miles."

Gwen hopped out of the window.

Noir, Ham, and Sp/dr clung to the other side of the wall, listening in on Peter B. and Miles. Noir waved for Gwen to join them. As much as she wanted to get on with saving the multiverse, she wanted to stay. Friendship prevailed over duty in this instance.

This was why Gwen didn't want to make friends. They would get in the way, just like Miles would have. They would get hurt, just like Peter had been.

But did that make them bad to have?

Gwen stopped worrying about herself and listened.

Should she be here?

SURE

"You're not getting it. You're staying here."

"I need to be there, so you all can get home."

"They are going home. I'm the only one staying."

That's what he thought.

"But if you stay here, you'll die."

"I'm doing what needs to be done. I just wanted you to hear it from me."

"What about MJ?"

A heavy pause.

"Not everything works out, kid. I need the goober."

Wait, Miles still had the goober?

"Don't make me take it from you."

Miles sounded agitated, like he was drawing on his last reserves of conviction. "But that's not fair! Tell them I can do this!"

"It wasn't their decision."

"But, but I gotta make Kingpin pay! Let me make him pay!"

"You're gonna get yourself killed if you do that."

"But I'm ready! I promise!"

He wasn't ready. He wasn't ready. What would it take to make Miles understand that?

Gwen heard thumping.

Peter B.'s voice sounded like it was coming from higher up than before. "Then venom-strike me right now. Or turn invisible, on command, so you can get past me."

Miles strained. He gritted his teeth and growled. But, apparently, nothing happened.

Gwen couldn't help but feel bad for him.

His devotion to friends wasn't going to help him. He needed to be broken of the habit before he got himself killed.

"Poor little guy," Noir muttered under his breath.

"I know how much you want this… but you don't have it yet. I'm sorry."

Webshooters fired repeatedly.

"When will I know I'm ready?" asked Miles.

"You won't. It's a leap of faith."

Peter B. climbed out the window and joined the rest of the Spider-Gang. They swung back into the city in silence.


	31. Day 9 - BREAD HINDRANCE

Gwen felt exhausted, even though it was hardly 5 in the evening. Everything had taken its toll on her, especially the unceasing atomic disjunctions.

"So, what do you say we get shawarma before saving the world?" asked Peter B., trying and failing to sound chipper.

"What's shawarma?" asked Peni.

"Hah, it's only the best type of food anywhere ever, besides pizza bagels, of course! C'mon, I know the best spot! At least, I hope it exists here!"

Peter B. led the spider-gang through the streets of Manhattan to a restaurant called the Shawarma Palace. They ate there in silence.

It was the perfect excuse for Gwen to ponder what Peter B. had told Miles. "A leap of faith," he had said. And he was right, for once.

What was her leap of faith?

* * *

Monday evening was the hardest evening she had ever spent crimefighting. Gwen hadn't bothered to go out over the weekend after Peter had died. Putting on the costume that day felt strange, like she was wearing somebody else's clothing. Torn clothing, actually. Before she could set out, she had to repair the damage done to her mask. It took her 90 minutes to fix it, sacrificing part of her bedsheet.

With her promise newly made, Gwen set out to fulfill it.

It was easier said than done.

Her first foe was a mugger who was threatening a young man at knifepoint. Gwen assumed that the takedown would be simple and painless. It was neither of those things.

She misjudged her leap and landed squarely on the victim of the mugging. The young man hit the ground with a loud thud and a softer crack. He didn't make any effort to get up, even after Gwen stepped off of him. The bell in her head started up again.

The mugger took Gwen's shock as the perfect opportunity to attack. He stabbed her in the upper arm. She yelled and kicked him in the gut. The mugger stumbled backwards, dragging the knife down her arm. Gwen winced and clasped her hand over the wound.

Before she could react, the mugger stood up and rushed her again. Gwen stepped aside and grabbed the man's right hand, crushing it. He screamed. Gwen finally disabled him with a punch to the jaw.

She helped up the mugger's victim, who was in a great deal of pain. "I'm so sorry, sir. Are you all right?"

"My head… owww..."

Gwen managed to half-carry, half-escort the whimpering victim to the emergency room. A kind nurse bandaged her stab wound while she was there.

She set off again. This time, she walked, since her injured arm wouldn't allow her to web-swing.

"You're that super-freak who killed the kid!" yelled a middle-aged woman on the other side of the street.

Gwen gave her a sarcastic salute. "Yeah, hi, nice to meet you too. I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Woman."

"Go burn in hell, mutant!" hollered another guy.

Gwen rolled her eyes behind the mask. She wasn't one of those creepy mutants. At least, she didn't think she was.

"I'm no mutant, dork, though judging by your face, you might be," she replied acrimoniously.

The bell in Gwen's head grew louder, fueled by the untrusting gazes and half-heard whispers of passersby. She broke out into a run to escape it.

She darted down the street, running faster than she thought was physically possible, until she collided into somebody. That somebody was a woman, a tall, stocky, pink-haired lady with tattoo-covered arms.

"What're you doing in those funky clothes, girl? DashCon's not until February."

"Oh boy," Gwen muttered.

The tall woman squinted at her. "What'd you call me?"

"Uh, uh, nothing, ma'am!"

The woman grinned, showing a missing tooth. "Now that's the kind of respect I like to hear. You're the superpowered girl who killed the boy, huh? I recognise you from the news."

Gwen nodded nervously, slowly edging away.

"A'right. Then how'd you like to join our gang?"

Gwen's eyes widened. Of course she didn't want to join a gang! She wanted to be a hero, not a villain! Why did everybody think she was the bad guy? That wasn't her plan!

"No thanks, ma'am," she blurted out. "I'm actually trying to stop people like you."

The woman's eyes narrowed again. "All right, superhero, have it your way."

Gwen squared up.

"Chill out, I'm not gonna fight a kid. Pick on somebody your own size."

Gwen relaxed and walked away.

She immediately remembered her promise and whipped back around. The bell clattered in her skull.

"Sorry, Pink Panther, but you're going down!"

Gwen shot a web at the woman. It adhered to her back, and she used it to yank the woman over to her. However, the woman was both ready and angry. She pulled out a gun, flicked off the safety, and fired.

Gwen didn't know that it was possible to dodge a bullet at point-blank range. She also didn't know that a bespectacled lady in her late thirties stood a few yards behind her.

Gwen crushed the gun with her hand. She knocked down the pink-haired woman with a foot to the neck. She ran over to the lady, who was bleeding from a bullet wound in her gut.

She carried her to the hospital, but it was too late.

The bell let out deafening clangs.

Gwen didn't remember how she had climbed to the highest strut of the Queensborough Bridge, nor did she recall how long it had taken to get there. Even less did she know how many people had heckled her or given her untrusting looks along the way, although she was vaguely aware of it happening. She was trapped in her own thoughts, not caring what happened on the outside.

All the same… she did care. And she knew what had brought her to that place.

She had broken her promise. She had tried so hard to succeed but had failed nonetheless. Everything she did resulted in her hurting others! Everything! Why, oh why couldn't she do anything right?

Connecticut City didn't need a hero like her. Connecticut City didn't need her. She wasn't a hero. She couldn't be a hero. She would never be one.

Gwen took off her gloves and pocketed them. She pulled up her mask.

She watched the murky water swirl below, then raised her head so she could watch the sun sink below the horizon. The clouds were a beautiful mix of purples and oranges. Somehow, the mess of colours blended beautifully and reflected off of the water, giving it a glow that disguised its pollution. The fading sunlight cast shadows across the far side of gleaming steel buildings.

Any city, no matter how ugly, looked better if it was partly encased in darkness.

Gwen wasn't scared. She knew that the fear would come later and would end abruptly.

The question was, would it work?

There was only one way to find out.

"Hey, new hero!" yelled a voice from below. It was a man, an elderly man with a small white moustache and large, distinctive glasses.

"I believe in you!"

Gwen pulled down her mask and dove from the bridge.

Time slowed down, and Gwen retreated into her mind.

The old man believed in her. Why? What was there to believe in? Didn't he know?

He had sounded so hopeful. What hope did she have?

It was the same hope that had led Gwen to get back up and to stop Peter from hurting himself and others. It was the same hope that had led Gwen to believe that she could become a hero. It was a hope that she thought she didn't have but which resided in her all the same.

She needed to get back up.

She needed hope.

Gwen pulled a glove back on and fired a webline.

Her feet skimmed the water.

She soared into the air, carried by a thread. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, heightening a confusing mix of fury and triumph. She yelled. Her voice sounded clear and wonderful and alive.

It was time for her to fly.

* * *

Gwen remained lost in thought after leaving the Shawarma Palace. (The food wasn't as bad as she had expected it to be.)

As much as she wanted to disown it, hope was the one thing that kept her going. Belief was the one thing that let her get up. That, and a stubbornness which stubbornly refused to stop being stubborn.

GAYNESS IMPEDIMENT

Since she wasn't paying attention, Gwen clotheslined herself on a pole adorned with a rainbow-patterned flag.

"Hey, you alright back there?" asked Ham.

She peeled herself off the pavement. "Yeah, I'm good."

The Spider-Gang reached a crane which overlooked Kingpin's large apartment building.

Sp/dr scanned the building. "Kingpin has a private elevator from his penthouse to the collider below the building."

Noir watched the crowd of affluent-looking people entering the skyscraper. "We can count on having an audience."

The gang proceeded to peer into the penthouse.

LINCH KING

"You've gotta be kidding me," everybody said simultaneously.

Of course, the penthouse was the location of a banquet. In honour of Spiderman.

"What a pig," Gwen spat.

Ham narrowed his eyes. "I'm right here."

"Hold on," interrupted Noir. "Look at how the waiters are dressed."

They were all wearing Spiderman masks to conceal their identity. And bow ties, because it was a formal event.

"It can't be that easy."

It was that easy. After sneaking through the unlocked door to the roof, the Spider-Gang happened upon a bin full of adhesive bow ties. Peter B., Noir, and Gwen each took one.

"Uh, what are ya gonna do with Peni and me?" asked Ham.

"I've got an idea," replied Peter B. with a mischievous intonation. He grabbed a large square tray and one of those food-covering domes from the closet. "Do you have any glue?"

"I think this will work," said Peni. She pulled a handful of gumballs out of Sp/dr.

Eww.

After five minutes of vigorous chewing, the tray was attached to the top of Sp/dr's dome. Peni tucked herself safely inside of her robot. Noir draped a white tablecloth over the tray, and bingo: instant serving cart.

When Peter B. gestured to Ham to go under the food dome, he refused.

"C'mon, where else are you gonna hide?"

"For Pete's sake, I won't do something so undignified!"

"Nobody will see you! We'll keep the lid over you the whole time."

Ham sighed. "Fine."

And so the Spider-Gang entered the banquet undisturbed, posing as waiters (and a waitress, and a serving tray, and a roasted pig).

"It's that easy," commented Peter B.

Did they have Easy Buttons in this dimension?

LINCH KING

"I just wanna thank MJ for being here this evening," said Kingpin from his dais.

Peter B. stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the woman in question.

"MJ?"

Oh boy.

Gwen snapped her fingers in front of Peter B.'s face. "Pay attention!" She pushed him back towards the "cart". "It's not your Em Jay, Peter."

Peter B. seemed to relent, but then he swung the "cart" back towards Em Jay's table. "Excuse me, but I gotta…"

Gwen intercepted the Spider-Cart. "Peter! No! Remember the mission."

She wasn't getting through to him.

"Trust me, I've been there. You gotta move on."

"C'mon, it'll take one second!" he pleaded.

BREAD HINDRANCE

Peter B. let go of the Spider-Cart and started to jog over. He stopped in his tracks upon seeing Em Jay standing directly in front of him.

"Hello," said Em Jay.

"Oh. Wow."

"I was just wondering if we could have some more bread at Table 12."

Peter B. remained stock still, frozen by… was it anxiety? Guilt? Well, it was something, and Gwen was not going to get involved in whatever it was. She could only hope that he'd realise that the mission was more important than his not-ex-wife.

"Uh, yeah. I'm just… I'm really sorry."

"Oh, don't be sorry." Em Jay chuckled. "It's just bread."

Gwen couldn't stop herself from facepalming. Noir looked on, as impassive as ever.

"I… I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I didn't even try."

Em Jay looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, uh, that's fine. You know, I should really get going."

"I know I could do better! If I only had the chance to get you… the _bread _that you deserve!"

This situation would probably be hilarious if it weren't so important that Peter B. not act like a moron. Gwen needed to take action before it got worse.

"Are you okay?" asked a disconcerted Em Jay.

Gwen stepped up to pull Peter B. away. "Ma'am, we'll get you some bread right away. Just sit tight."

Em Jay nodded and walked away. She looked relieved.

Peter B. continued to wax poetic. "For you, they should fill this place up with fresh bread."

Had his shawarma gone bad?

Gwen led Peter B. back to the Spider-Cart. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Good, 'cuz we're not getting her any bread."

The Spider-Gang left the dining hall and headed into the kitchen.


	32. Day 9 - LINCH KING

PERSONS TAKING NOTICE

The big grey guy was waiting behind the kitchen doors. "Hey, whatcha got in there?"

Peter B. instinctively put up his fists. Gwen had to push them back down.

"Just your typical stuff. Liver, hard cheese, barley duke sandwiches. Nothing unusual," responded Noir.

What was a barley duke sandwich? Was Noir making stuff up or talking about real 1930s cuisine?

"Oh, that sounds good. Mind if I take a bite? I'm real hungry."

The grey guy lifted the cover… and saw Ham, wearing nothing but his mask and holding an apple in his mouth.

The grey guy seemed more amused than anything. Hopefully, that was a good sign. "Ha ha ha! Look at this! They even got the mask on 'im!"

"Heh heh, I know, right?" replied Gwen, trying to sound both more and less amused than she actually was.

"Well, I don't eat pork."

"You don't deserve pork!" yelled Ham. Gwen scrambled to put the lid back over him.

The grey guy gave the Spider-Gang a last once-over, then gestured to the far door. "Right through there. Have fun."

Gwen had to restrain herself from bolting to the nearest exit. She calmly walked out the door, pushing the Spider-Cart.

Peter B. sighed in relief and tore off his bow tie. "Ha, aren't they dumb?"

"They are so dumb!"

Ham put his suit back on and threw the lid to the floor. It clattered loudly on the tile. "They're all ¢*§¿~θ morons."

She still didn't understand how he could pronounce that.

LINCH KING

The Spider-Gang clung to the ceiling and crawled along until they saw Kingpin enter a room. It had to contain the entrance to the elevator.

GUARD ON WATCH

Of course, two guards stood in front of the doorway. They were quickly disabled by some webbing.

The Spider-Gang walked in and examined the room. It looked like a big conference room, complete with a large desk and an even larger painting. The elevator was probably behind the painting. Gwen knew how these things worked.

Sp/dr scanned the room. Peni said, "The elevator's behind that painting."

Her suspicions were correct.

Noir looked at it. "What a beautiful painting. I love the use of purple."

The painting was an ugly amber yellowish colour. It was definitely not the type of thing Gwen would want hanging in her conference room, or in any room, for that matter.

"Colour's not his strong suit," remarked Ham, thumbing at Noir.

"It's purple!" Noir ripped apart the painting, revealing sleek aluminum elevator doors and a white call button. He bypassed the call button and tore open the doors. The Spider-Gang leaped down the shaft.

HOSTILE SITUATION

"_Secondary ignition in five…"_

Everybody landed at the bottom of the shaft and started to run.

"_Four… three… two…"_

They surmounted a catwalk and looked out upon the massive collider.

"_One…"_

The collider shot out giant bolts of energy from both ends. The beams were so orange they looked blue. They met in the middle and spouted excess energy to the sides. The room felt a little bit warmer than it had before. The sight was enthralling but terrifying.

Peter B. glitched out and dropped to a knee. So did the other spiders, except for Gwen.

"Peter, you don't have to stay behind. I'll do it."

Peter B. regained his footing. "It's okay. I've made up my mind."

So had she. And Gwen would fight to her last breath to make sure that Peter B. got home to see his friends and his wife again.

The Spider-Gang swung to the roof of the collider. Actually, it might not have been the roof, because it's hard to tell which way is up in a cylindrical chamber when you have gravity-defying adhesion.

Peter B. called to them, "I'll put in the goober. Once you're gone, I'll blow it up. Good luck, guys."

GUARDS ON WATCH

Uh-oh. Maybe the grey guy wasn't as dumb as he looked.

"They know we're here," whispered Gwen.

OCTAGONS

Peter B. looked up as he reached to insert the goober drive – no, the flash drive. His arm was captured by a plastic pincer. He turned to see Doc Ock enter the chamber.

"Nice to see you again, Peter," she said. A maniacal grin was plastered across her face.

The guards on the catwalk started shooting at the spiders. Gwen dove out of the way. She swung through the framework, dodging bullets.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION.

Gwen tried to land on a crossbeam. She glitched out and fell, managing to right herself in time with a webline. It was a good thing that May had fixed her gloves.

She swung through the rafters and knocked down a couple of hired hands. She saw Scorpion charge in and attack Peni, so she headed over to assist.

Doc Ock, in the meantime, was busy throttling Peter B. "Any last words?"

"Can you give me a minute?" he choked out. "Got a pen?"

Gwen felt torn between the two heroes. There was too much going on all at once. She was about to swing over there and extract Peter B. when she saw one of Doc Ock's tentacles punch her in the face.

Liv was being attacked by an invisible opponent.

Gwen's eyes widened. Could it be Miles?

It was. Two weblines from out of nowhere adhered to the wall of the collider. Miles appeared and surged forward, punching Doc Ock square in the jaw. She dropped Peter B. Miles caught him with a webline and flung him to the collider roof.

"Wow, Miles! You're doing it on command!"

"About time, right?"

The rest of the spiders cheered for Miles.

"He figured it out," muttered Gwen. She smiled.

He had found hope. He had taken his hope and translated it into drive. He had taken his potential and turned it into energy. He had taken a leap of faith, and he had come out on top. At least, Gwen assumed that he had.

Also, he wore a sleek new costume. It was black with red highlights. A red spider emblem was spray-painted onto his chest.

Peter B. and Miles took off and rushed towards Doc Ock. She started ripping off ceiling tiles and hurling them at them.

Gwen redirected her attention to taking out the guards, but something caught her eye. The spot in between the two beams of energy from the collider was black now, and it was getting bigger. It exploded in a burst of colour and overwhelmed the control box.

She dodged the gunfire (there was still a lot of it) and claws while watching, enthralled, as the collider started to glitch out.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Gwen glitched out again and narrowly missed being struck by a bullet. She was knocked sideways by one of Doc Ock's pincers and hit a… hold on a second.

Holy cuss word.

LARGE-SCALE ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

There were BUILDINGS emerging from the collider beam. Skyscrapers, trains, cars, buses, deli kiosks, a snowman, a… was that a giant tube of lozenges?

LOZENGE BOMBARDMENT

Apparently it was. Gwen dodged and ducked through the midst of the chaos. She perched on the emitter nozzle thingy with Peter B. and Miles.

"Are you seeing this?" asked Peter B. He couldn't believe his eyes. Neither could Gwen.

"It looks like our dimensions are coming to us!" she shouted back over the hubbub.

"It does look cool, right?"

It did. It was chaos, but it was a weirdly rhythmic sort of chaos. The buildings pulsed and swayed and retracted with a drum-like beat.

OCTAGONS

She dove out of the way as Doc Ock threw a bus at the trio.

Noir managed to easily take down the grey guy while yelling some sort of gibberish at him. Did he say something about a soft-boiled turtle, or did Gwen not hear him correctly? Noir flung a car at the grey guy to finish him off.

Meanwhile, Peni had a hard time fending off Scorpion. His stinger penetrated Sp/dr's viewscreen. But before Scorpion could deal the final blow, an anvil fell on his head. An honest to goodness cartoon anvil, like something out of "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit".

Gwen distinctly heard Ham say, "You got a problem with cartoons?" Then Ham went ham on Scorpion. He smacked him upside the cranium with a comically-oversized wooden mallet, among other things. Noir swung Scorpion around by his tail and threw him at Peni. She dealt the final blow with one of Sp/dr's broken-off legs.

Meanwhile, Gwen was busy contending with Doc Ock. Unfortunately, she wouldn't go down as easily as she had the first couple of times they fought. She webbed up a giant cassette tape (it had "Awesome Mix Vol. 3" scribbled on the front) and flung it at her.

ATOMIC DISJUNCTION

Doc Ock's claws tore the cassette in half. She drove Gwen into a concrete wall.

She must have passed out, because the next thing she remembered was almost striking the collider beam but seeing Miles' hand. She grabbed it.

"I like your suit."

"Thanks. I made it myself."

Miles shot a webline to Peter B., who flung the pair at Doc Ock.

"That was adorable, kids! Now, hold on tight!"

Gwen punched the mad scientist in the face first, followed by Miles, then Peter B. Miles and Gwen then teamed up to sock Doc Ock in the chin, knocking her over. They bumped fists.

OCTAGONS

But Liv managed to catch herself between two buildings. She propelled herself towards the trio, eyes aflame with malice.

"Buckle up, guys. This is gonna take a while," Gwen warned.

Suddenly, Doc Ock was blindsided by a truck.

The trio stared at the place where she used to be.

"Never mind. Let's end this."

"I'll go," said Miles.

Peter B. retorted, "No, I'll do it. I'm the one with the goo-"

MILES OF INTEREST

Miles held up the flash drive.

"You gotta be kidding me."

"Don't watch the mouth," Miles said smugly. "Watch the hands."

He took off, propelling himself upward with a webline, then letting go and falling in a graceful parabola below the edge of the emitter.

"Be careful!" Peter B. yelled after him.

Miles slipped through a gap between two buildings and shot out another webline. He swung in an arc and landed on the rotating part of the emitter. He leaped off. With one last webline-powered propulsion, he gained enough velocity to land on the roof of the collider.

Show-off.

"Hey, uh, we taught him that, right?" muttered Peter B.

"I didn't. And you definitely didn't."

The pair swung to the access panel. So did Noir, Ham, and Peni, who rode on Noir's shoulders. What had happened to Sp/dr?

Gwen noticed the wreck of a robot that used to be Sp/dr lying on the floor of the collider. That was not a good sign.

Miles inserted the goober and activated a control panel. "Guys! I got control of the beam! Get up here!"

LINCH KING

Kingpin roared in fury from his observation deck. He smashed a control panel with his giant fists.

What was he gonna do about it, huh? What could that enormous, black-suited circus freak do about his ruined collider? It wasn't like he had superpowers.

The Spider-Gang joined Miles at the access hatch.

"I guess this is it," Gwen remarked. Despite her inclination to avoid emotional attachments with others, she had to admit that she would miss these guys, especially Miles.

Peni looked distraught, but at least her spider was on her shoulder. "Well… nice to know we're not alone, right?"

"Yeah."

"I've got the portal open," said Miles as he pulled off his mask. "You first, Peni."

"Thank you, Miles. From both of us."

Peni's spider chirped happily. She let go of Noir and fell into the collider beam.

Peni was a sweet kid. A vicious little gremlin on the inside, perhaps, but sweet nonetheless.

Noir lowered his head. "I, uh, I… love you all." He held up the Rubix Cube. "I'm taking this cube thing with me. I don't understand it yet, but I will." He gave a salute and fell into the collider beam.

Noir had a good heart, despite his dark exterior.

Ham pulled a wooden mallet from out of nowhere and handed it to Miles. "I want you to have this. It'll fit in your pocket." He sniffled and started to cry. "That's all, folks."

As Ham fell into the collider beam, Peter B. asked, "Is he legally allowed to say that?"

Ham was goofy, sure, but he was probably the wisest one of the whole Spider-Gang.

Peter B. was beaten up, worn out, and hung out to dry, but he had a tenacity about him, even when he didn't want to continue. And he still had a youthful spark of optimism that was inspiring.

SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW

It was Gwen's turn now, and she didn't want to go. She wanted to stay and shut the whole thing down so that Peter B. could go home and Miles could leave and stay safe. But that wasn't the whole reason. Why didn't she want to go?

"Do I get to like the haircut now?" asked Miles.

Gwen pulled off her mask so she could look him in the eyes and show off her haircut, which she had grown increasingly fond of as time passed.

Of course. She wanted to stay so that she could hang out with Miles some more. She felt like she hadn't spent enough time with him. But then again, was it because he reminded her of Peter? Was it because Miles was nice and kind and even funny in the same goofy sort of way?

But she couldn't stay in this dimension. She would die. And, as Gwen suddenly realised, she had never been a ghost in the first place.

The reason why was because she had hope. As stupid as that sounded, it was true. She almost died in multiple situations but was saved by hope. Maybe it wasn't her own belief, but it fueled her obstinance all the same. So she kept getting up, even when death threatened to drag her down, even when there was no hope at all. Gwen persisted. And she wasn't going to stop persisting any time soon.

She liked the name "Ghost Spider", though. She wanted to keep the name. It would serve as a reminder of what she had done and had failed to do. Her memories would subside into mist, but she didn't want them to go away completely. Not anymore.

MILES OF INTEREST

Gwen looked at Miles. Suddenly, a bunch of puzzle pieces fell into place. The awkward shoulder touching moment… the attempt to comfort her on the bus… his leap to save her, even though she could very well have saved herself (probably)… the way he was looking at her right now, with a mix of tacked-on self-reassurance and awkward reticence.

Miles had a crush on her.

Of course, that meant she had to dissuade him.

"You know, I'm older than you. By fifteen months, but I think that's pretty significant."

"Well, Einstein said time was relative. Right?"

Gwen felt a sudden urge to reach over and hug Miles. She refrained from doing so, instead turning away and leaning against the collider wall.

Miles offered his hand for a handshake. "Friends?"

Gwen shook his hand. "Friends. See you around, Spiderman."

Miles smiled broadly.

She had to go. She had hope that Peter B. would get home to his Em Jay. She had hope that Miles would succeed. She had hope that she would be a hero.

She took off, falling towards the beam of the collider.

INTERDIMENSIONAL TRANSPORTATION IMMINENT


	33. Epilogue

Gwen sat on the ledge of a skyscraper back home in Connecticut City, posting a five-star Welp review for her phone provider. They had provided quality interdimensional cell service.

She closed her browser and was about to switch off her phone when she accidentally selected her photos app. Intrigued, she scrolled through them.

The first one was super blurry, but she had kept it because Noir didn't have his mask on in it. Ham had pulled it off, and Noir was considerably less than pleased.

The second one was the selfie on the bus home from Alchemax. Gwen's gaze lingered on the photo, precious because it had captured rare footage of her being happy. Such moments were few and far between these days, but she wondered if they would increase. After all, she did have hope now. And she knew that she wasn't alone.

Gwen smiled softly and switched off her phone, sliding it into her pocket. She pulled on her mask and hood and pushed herself off of the roof, falling into the emptiness below as though she were descending into a pool, knowing that something would catch her.

That safety net was her.

A webline blossomed from each of her gloves and adhered to the side of the building across the street. Gwen yanked downwards on the lines, redirecting her momentum.

It was time for her to fly.

But first, she needed to make a long-overdue pit stop.

Gwen landed in the cemetery a few minutes later. She approached the headstone of a certain Peter J. Parker. Nobody was around to see her, so she pulled off her mask and sat down on a mixture of dry grass and dead leaves.

"Hey, Peter," she finally said. "It's… it's been a while.

"I should have come earlier. I, uh, I should have been at your funeral. But… but, you know, there are lots of things I should have done. And it's no use dwelling on them now. The past has already passed."

That last sentence was a good one. Gwen paused to jot it down in her notebook.

"Anyway… I'm here now. I'm here, and I just got back from an adventure. I… I hope you've been having fun, wherever you are. I hope you're having a less interesting time than I've been having."

Gwen sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead.

"I, uh, I went to another dimension a couple days ago. It feels like longer. It was longer. I think. Time is weird. Time travel, that is. So is dimensional travel. But you probably knew that already. I'm sure you'd love to hear more about the sciencey stuff, but I don't really get it. You'd be able to explain it to me, I know that much.

"Well… I met you in that dimension. Not the real you. I mean, he was real, that's for sure. He was Peter, but he was a different Peter. Older. Blonder. He had spider-powers, like I do. And he married Em Jay, who was a lot less of a jerk in that universe.

"You… he died again. And I didn't stop it. Even though I could have."

Gwen exhaled deeply.

"Then I met you again. This Peter, Peter B., was from a third dimension. He was older. A lot older. No glasses. Spider-powers, too. Consider yourself lucky you didn't have to live that long.

"There were other Peters, too, but they were a lot less like you.

"Then there's Miles. He ended up getting spider-powers. And he took over from the Peter in that dimension, the one I went to, after he died. Miles was really sweet. He was kind and nice and went out of his way to make people happy. He's a lot like you, at least in terms of personality.

"Seeing all of them… it made me remember you, even though I didn't want to. It made me remember what I did. And… I'm not trying to put blame on you or antagonise you or anything, but… I wasn't in the right, but neither were you. We both made mistakes, and we both paid a price. You paid a bigger price than I did, obviously.

"But I've died, too, in some ways. Really, from learning about the other dimensions, I should be dead and you should be alive. And that makes me feel super guilty. I feel like I've stolen something from you, the life that you should have had.

"I… I don't really know what it is I did that made you so, uh, vitriolic. I could try and guess, but then we'd be here all day. I know you have all the time in the world, but I don't.

"Whatever it was that I did… I'm sorry. I'm sorry for ticking you off. I'm sorry for not caring about you. I'm sorry for making you envy me. I'm sorry for being a bad person."

Gwen blinked. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Why did she bother bottling up her emotions, anyway? What good had that ever done? She was going to lose people. People were going to die, to move on, to leave. She would do the same one day. It was the way of the world. But did that make friendship, or love, any less worth it?

She hung her head. A valve hidden deep in her heart swung open.

"I made a silent promise not long after you… after I killed you. And I'm repeating it here and now, so that you can hear me. You can quote me on this. I mean, you probably won't, but... you know what I mean.

"I said I'd never stand back and watch another innocent die because of me. Or because of anybody. I'll never take a seat and watch somebody's suffering. Not again. Never again."

Gwen sniffled, her voice cracking.

"You always made me a better person, Pete. And now… now I'm gonna be better. Forever. For you. I'll never forget you again. I promise."

Gwen stood up and dried her eyes, pulling back on her mask. Her father's "missing" police scanner was abuzz with chatter. She listened to it.

"...suspicious blue-and-red man with a skull on his chest walking down Birch Avenue. Appears to have some sort of glowing watch."

Gwen turned back to Peter's tombstone. "I'll visit you again. I've got so many more stories to tell you. I'm sure you'd love them. But right now… I've got a job to do.

"See you around."

She shot a webline into the air and swung away.

THE END

* * *

**WARNING: LONG AUTHOR'S NOTES INCOMING**

**I started writing this story on my phone during a long car ride on the 28th of December. It grew from a small what-if concept into... this. This is the most ambitious fanwork I've yet published. I say "yet published" for reasons I'll discuss later.**

**A huge shoutout to gammathetaalpha, who was kind enough to betaread this story for me in its almost entirety. If there are problems in Days 1 or 9, I'm to blame. Please check out her other fics; she writes lots of MCU stuff! And thanks to my other friends off of whom I've bounced the occasional idea!**

**Of course, thank you all for reading this story, whether you've been here since the beginning, left halfway through, or joined near the end! It's been a heck of a ride completing this thing, but your continued support has helped make it worth the while!**

**Now, I'm sure you're all wondering, "What's meow up to next?" Of course, you probably aren't. But I'll tell you anyway! I'm working on a webcomic, due to be released in December! Keep up with my Tumblr blog (the username's the same) for more info! Also, I fell headfirst into the Homestuck fandom a month ago, and I started writing a fic. The first chapter will be posted tomorrow, on the 25th! For those of you who are only here for the Marvel, I'm sad to say I don't have anything much ready for you right now. I have a one-shot regarding Endgame and a couple of Spiderverse fic ideas that are both halted. But stay tuned, just in case I do anything else!**

**Oh, yeah, and I'm thinking about posting dramatic fic readings on YouTube! This is definitely one fic that I would love to record myself reading! So stay tuned, yet again!**

**Thanks again for reading! I hope it was as much worth your while as it was mine!**


End file.
